Hi. Presently I am using chord mojo with cayin N5 dap & Aroma A100 as amp. My concern is how to connect the cayin dap as it only have coaxial 3.5mm. Should I change a new dap instead of messing with cables. Tks
Hello all, I love surfing the used forums because I find out about different gear like this Dac. Is this Amanero USB Interface some noise reduction tech similar to the Schiit Gen 5 usb? I have a Stack with a Mimby/Magni 3 and Eitr and I'm debating whether I should sell the Eitr. Honestly dunno about r2r anymore as I like the Sdac more than the Mimby.. I was going to buy the airist rdac, but this one fills a price gap in r2r dacs that I'm comfortable with saving towards. Would end up pairing the Ares with the CTH/LPS whenever the LPS arrives in the mail
Finally got the Ares from Alvin place. Hook up A&K SR15 Dap and Aroma A100 as amp. Whoah out of the box and I like it so much. Vocals soundstage bass imaging were just fantastic.
Even though Denafrips site mentions this dac as "True Balanced", it seems it's not true when we see the circuit board because it only has two sections of resistor arrays like a single-ended dac. Ares Circuit board But their other dacs have 4 groups of resistor array sections like balanced dacs I've seen before. Circuit board of Pontus If Denafrips ares is not true balanced, i think it's not that good to advertise it as "true balanced" and maybe not good for that price for a "fake balaned" dac when there are cheaper options like Schiit multibit & Soekris r2r dacs. Just my opinion. Please correct if I'm wrong.
Hi @Suppa92, DENAFRIPS DACs are true balanced, Ares inclusive. Ares architecture is fairly different from the bigger brothers, but, to clarify your doubts, yes, Ares is a true balanced DAC. Its balanced output (XLR), are generated via the R-2R ladders; not like a fake balanced output generated by the use of OPAMP differential converter per se. Hope it helps! Rgds, Alvin @ Vinshine Audio
Thank you very much for the reply @alvin1118. I'm not an electronic engineer but I don't think there is any other way to make a "True Balanced" dac without having 4 independent resistor networks. To have "Balanced" topology circuit you definitely need 4 groups of independent circuits, without that how can we get "Common-Mode Rejection" that we expect from a "Balanced circuit"? Maybe Ares is "Fully Differential" dac but not a "True Balanced", like we can see in "Massdrop x THX AAA 789" amplifier which is a "Fully Differential" amp that takes "Balanced inputs" and gives "Balanced Output". "Fully Differential" dac is definitely better than "Single Ended" but it's still not a "True Balanced" dac. Please correct me if I said anything wrong. Thanks.
You're welcome @Suppa92. Your understanding of true-balanced and fully-differential designs are correct. A true-balanced audio equipment needs to have the +ve -ve electronic circuits in place to achieve the balanced topology. DENAFRIPS Ares is a true-balanced DAC with 4 sets of R-2R ladder arrays. It may be deceiving by comparing its R-2R networks with the Pontus/Venus/Terminator; but if you look closely, you'll realize that there are 4 sets of them in the Ares. In fact, all DENAFRIPS gears are true-balanced, including the new Hestia & Hyperion pre-power amplifier, and the Artemis flagship headphone amp. Cheers, Alvin
Hello Alvin... I am curious whether the Denafrips DACs are able to process DSD 256 via DoP? My understanding is that a PCM rate of 705.6KHz is required for DSD256 over DoP. I have read that people have trouble with it over the USB 2.0 interface via DoP.
Thanks @alvin1118 for clearing that up. I have another two questions. 1.What brand of caps used in Ares (Mundorf, wima, nover & etc.)? Since there are many caps in ares I'm bit curious about them because to my knowledge Electrolytic caps have higher chance to go bad compared to diodes, resistors and transistors/ICs and other electronic components. 2.Does Ares correct resistor network errors in FPGA? since resistance of resistors can change with the temperature and time, it's better to correct those inaccuracies in FPGA. Does Ares has that kind of a error correction algorithm in FPGA code? Thanks.
Hi alvin tks for clarification I would like to check does the flagship headphone amp comes with 2.5mm input for headphones. Tks
