[dougms3]

Detail, speed, transparency and just more coherent. The ares 2 is the more natural sounding with a wider sound stage.
Also, if to compare DSD playback, it's not even in the same league, the CMA800i transforms into a different device with it's amazing DSD playback, quite incredible indeed.

Very curious what in particular is superior with the DSD playback with the CMA800i?

 

[simon740]

Detail, speed, transparency and just more coherent. The ares 2 is the more natural sounding with a wider sound stage.
Also, if to compare DSD playback, it's not even in the same league, the CMA800i transforms into a different device with it's amazing DSD playback, quite incredible indeed.

If you want speed, transparency, detail...then Ares II dac is not for you. Ares II is for enjoying music. Natural presentation, "correct color" of instruments. And 3D image.

 

[ProLoL]

If you want speed, transparency, detail...then Ares II dac is not for you. Ares II is for enjoying music. Natural presentation, "correct color" of instruments. And 3D image.

I know, I had two Ares 2 and loved it for their strength but my preference would be the a CAS192D over it but there comes the price difference.

Very curious what in particular is superior with the DSD playback with the CMA800i?

It transforms this device into a different device completely listening through DSD, they call it "direct" dsd or whatever but it's sublime, would recommend to try it if possible.
CMA800i + HD800 = wowzer.

 

[AudioEarthling]

@ProLoL Thanks for sharing. Is your personal reference CMA800i (based on Wolfson WM8741) a Sigma-Delta type dac or a Multibit chip ladder type dac?
Found an interesting comparison between WM8741 vs. ESS9023. Though we tasteful listeners know that graphs don't say everything/anythying when it comes to musical enjoyment. I particular liked his subjective interpretation in the perceived comparision table, between the two chip based DACs:

 

[ProLoL]

@ProLoL Thanks for sharing. Is your personal reference CMA800i (based on Wolfson WM8741) a Sigma-Delta type dac or a Multibit chip ladder type dac?
Found an interesting comparison between WM8741 vs. ESS9023. Though we tasteful listeners know that graphs don't say everything/anythying when it comes to musical enjoyment. I particular liked his subjective interpretation in the perceived comparision table, between the two chip based DACs:

The chip itself is just a piece of the whole picture but I agree with this statement, thanks for sharing.
I myself prefer an R2R but a good designed delta sigma can certainly take me to places.

 

[henriks]

This has been up before.. 2 devices connected, but only one is powered and used, should that be a problem?

 

[sajunky]

Yes

 

[shafat777]

This has been up before.. 2 devices connected, but only one is powered and used, should that be a problem?

Yes. Regardless of power on or off, the dac will split its power between xlr and rca out and that will result in lower sound quality.

 

[szore]

Booooo, booooo lower sound quality....

 

[szore]

Guys, I'm loving my Ares II and Jotunheim amp! I just got home from a weekend of Canjam, And first thing I put on my 2C which was running to burn in the Ares, etc, and immediatly I was happy! At no point did I feel that my rig was inferior to anything I head (including $20,000 systems.) For what I got, I'm set! happy camper, end game!

 

[szore]

I am toying with the idea of getting the Iris DDC, tho...and maybe a good power conditioner...

 

[szore]

I don't like that many caps together from a reliability standpoint. If one decides to cause trouble, very hard to figure out which one. But clearly the ESR is going to be lower for a bunch of small caps vs a couple of big caps.

I do know someone in Iceland that just bought an ares. will be interesting to see their review.

I expect to see a bunch of under $1k R2R dacs on the market soon

Never happened!

 

[szore]

These are two different things but they do influence each other. (N)OS has a bearing in what goes in; 44.1 or 172.4 kHz (a digital proximation of smaller steps but no actual information). Steep or slow filtering happens to what comes out (and is therefore analog like speaker filters and has effect on phase and high frequencies).

What happens if you oversample, you push the filings to higher frequencies (the difference between a gradual slope and steps, if your steps are smaller you need to file off less to get a smooth slope). If the rubbish moves higher you don't have to filter as steep and a gentler filtee means less temporal smearing and distortion. In theory...

In theory this is all a very good idea. In practice, it is not. This is my personal opinion based on lots of experimenting and first and foremost listening with actual MUSIC. Music is not the same as a testsignal. What seems horrible and very obviously audible simply vanishes with actual music (what would be atrocious to humans and scare all pets into cardiac arrest would be music with 0dB level at >10 kHz). I need to elaborate a bit on this; R2R and DS behave differently when it comes to HF hash. DS produces a lot of unnatural ugly HF noise and really needs to be filtered with substantial filters (plus in all cases output V amplification). R2R HF noise is different; more benign and just less. Plus that the output does deliver A but little V, so it often can do with a simple I/V. At least, in the chips i used, my experience is limited. But i could do without any OS, filtering and very basic I/V leaving slight DC-ofset alone. This gives me a very pure signal. Maybe not the most dynamic but very minimalistic and pure. (i expect better input stage and better discrete R2R from the Ares plus DSD decoding).

So, again IMHO, it 's a lot adoo about nothing. Music sounds fine at 44kHz without any filtering. I cant hear any of the hf artifacts anyway, with the occasional exception of rare electronic music that is artificial anyway where you can hear slight whisling tones going the wrong way around. I can't think of any examples other than a frequency sweep. I found that NOS without any filtering (i know it's heresy but I'm anti-religious believer anyway) sounds best and closest to natural and only gets better with REAL HD material.

Using HD source material is the antidote for fake plastic oversampling. Actual information is better than guestimates. And it also allows for less filtering. Using the minimum of 16-96 is far preferable to any oversampling. Personally i don't miss much by stepping up to 192 or >. And 24 bits is absolutely meaningless (unless you use digital volume). It just takes up space.

I thought i made a good buy on an old Philips CD player with cdm19 laser and 1543 chips (iirc) but it sounds nowhere near a digital source even on coax out. My guess is the coax is tapped after the usual accompanying upsampling chip. I can't think of any other reason why coax out would sound so different. Of course i can fix it with a mod but i have enough projects going. I might be wrong on this but for me its a confirmation oversampling is not what i want.

I agree about the filtering, I've had mine for 14 days now, and I have had OS with soft because of everyone saying, but I just tried NOS with soft, and I like it much more, it is indeed more natural and pure sounding.

 

[halo26]

1. I'm pretty sure that if you're listening to it with NOS, there is no filtering (eg soft) available. Filtering on the ares 2 is only available in oversampling mode.

2. Does anybody hear any difference with changing the phase? I'm using this with a schiit asgaard3.

 

[ProLoL]

1. I'm pretty sure that if you're listening to it with NOS, there is no filtering (eg soft) available. Filtering on the ares 2 is only available in oversampling mode.

2. Does anybody hear any difference with changing the phase? I'm using this with a schiit asgaard3.

Soft / sharp is available for both NOS and OS.
My preference is OS soft and is easily distinguishable.