[simon740]

The D30 is half the price of the Ares II, to be expected.

I’ve written this for those who say all DACs sound the same :-D

 

[]eep]

The D30 is half the price of the Ares II, to be expected.

It's about conversion method and its implications. The auxiliaries to make that system work. Not just the dac itself (discrete or ic) but I/V and opamp stage. R2R doesn't need an opamp stage altogether and I/V is minimal. That saves a lot of effort, loss of precision an money that you can invest in what comes before the actual dac; power supply and signal handling. Even if a good resistor ladder requires attention, you won't lose a fraction of what a cheap-ass opamp stage does.

In short: a DAC unit is much more than just a dac and with sigma-delta you are going to notice a lot of difference in the attention to quality of the opamp stage. And when you have that covered you can focus on differences in OS/NOS and r2r/ds.

I have a couple of dacs that are (a lot) cheaper than the D30 that sound better (in some areas) than the Ares. Only thing is that they are built with NOS (as in surplus) R2R chips and sampling rates are limited to PCM 96kHz. There are even some dacs that cost €30 (butchered 47labs clones) that have most of this character (if only 44kHz)

So while it seems obvious, it's not just about price.

 

[sajunky]

After a long time of enjoying with the Ares II, I hooked up the Topping D30 today for fun. OMG. Disaster. This is not to be listened to. Sound of instruments .... plastic, without real fading ...Soundstage 2D...flat...
Ares is really far, far better.

regards,
Simon

Did you like it before? Ever? . LOL.

My D30 is a fraud. Cheaper components than in a reviewer unit and probably fake opamps, as the is no explanation why it could sound so bad. Realtek chip in Sony Vaio laptop sounds better. D30 rests on the bottom of the drawer, it was replaced soon with Nobsound 8xTDA1387, portable device, still in use on the road.

 

[rreynolds]

Received my Terminator Plus today! A lot larger than I was expecting, little ridiculous for a DAC, but hey! The extent we go to for premium sound.

Will post first impressions soon. The Venus II is fresh on my mind and will directly compare with it.

 

[dougms3]

Received my Terminator Plus today! A lot larger than I was expecting, little ridiculous for a DAC, but hey! The extent we go to for premium sound.

Will post first impressions soon. The Venus II is fresh on my mind and will directly compare with it.

I think you might be in the wrong thread but would still love to hear your impressions.

Can you compare to the Ares as well?

 

[viggen]

I recently upgraded the wall outlet duplex to a Furutech GTX-D,

I think you might be in the wrong thread but would still love to hear your impressions.

Can you compare to the Ares as well?

he did compare... their size

 

[dougms3]

I recently upgraded the cheap $1 wall duplex to a Furutech GTX-D and I'm blown away by the difference it made.

I mean it was not subtle at all. I'm kicking myself for waiting this long to do this.

Has anyone tried upgrading their duplex?

 

[kingoftown1]

@dougms3 I'm a big fan of Furutech connectors in general, and very happy with my GTX-D (R) NCF. Well worth the horrible burn in period. On the same note - the FI-06 NCF IEC is a drop-in fit for a lot of the non-NCF Furutech IECs that Denafrips uses. I made the switch on a Hestia when I had it, easy and worthwhile tweak.

Also receiving the HF-X NCF HDMI soon for I2S use, but not with a Denafrips dac or ddc, so that might be too off-topic.

 

[dougms3]

@dougms3 I'm a big fan of Furutech connectors in general, and very happy with my GTX-D (R) NCF. Well worth the horrible burn in period. On the same note - the FI-06 NCF IEC is a drop-in fit for a lot of the non-NCF Furutech IECs that Denafrips uses. I made the switch on a Hestia when I had it, easy and worthwhile tweak.

Also receiving the HF-X NCF HDMI soon for I2S use, but not with a Denafrips dac or ddc, so that might be too off-topic.

Also a big fan of furutech stuff.

I went with the GTX-D Gold as I like a warm and bassy signature. Going through burn in now about 120 hours deep, sound has been changing alot in that time. How long would you say it took for your rhodium duplex to burn in? I hear they take much longer.

Unfortunately, the Ares uses an integrated power, switch, and iec, don't think theres any furutech upgrade for that.

 

[petersch]

I think its just like that, one of its quirks I guess.

I can control the volume level through windows but it doesn't do anything whether I set it to 1 or 100. However, 0 mutes it.

I think its just auto set to max. I just use the amp to control volume.

It’s the same with Mac and Windows. I was in contact with Vincent at Vinshine and he told me that they disabled the mixers for bit perfect sound, Makes sense to me. I had one computer that I relied on the mixer and now I’ve whipped up a quick passive preamp with an ALPS pot and it sounds fabulous with my Aries 2. I do have an issue with the Mac though, I can’t use PCM 1536 bitrate or I get no sound in Chrome or Tidal, dropping the rate back to 768 allows everything to be back to normal. I use the quick bitrate because it almost completely removes any Lip Sync issues with Aries and video streaming. If you use 44 or 48 get ready for some serious lip sync issues with Kodi or Apple TV. I found that flashing back to version 3.6 helped but Ver 3.12 does sound better if I don’t use 1024 DSD or 1536 PCM and less dropouts.

Pete

 

[dog44]

Does anyone have impressions on Ares II v. Pontus II? Surprisingly hard to find any good comparisons of Pontus II.

 

[squadgazzz]

Does anyone have impressions on Ares II v. Pontus II? Surprisingly hard to find any good comparisons of Pontus II.

Comparisons here do not make any sense. Pontus II is way better than the Ares II in every aspect.
While Musician Pegasus is another next-level device compared to the Ares II, Pontus II is the best of these three.

 

[dog44]

Comparisons here do not make any sense. Pontus II is way better than the Ares II in every aspect.
While Musician Pegasus is another next-level device compared to the Ares II, Pontus II is the best of these three.

It helps in knowing whether it's truly worth the ~1k difference and possibly selling an Ares. Better in every way is nice n' all and frankly, to be expected. However, it does not help decide if it's worthy of an extra grand over an Ares and selling said Ares.

I'd like to hear some impressions if anyone has them. I have an Ares II already, an RME ADI-2, and a Bifrost 2. I know what these sound like already, but I've never heard a Pontus II or one 'compared' to an Ares II. I've heard and seen the glowing reviews for both, but I'm wondering what I'd get out of it for my money. I'm interested in specifics, it doesn't even have to be a direct 'comparison', just not a generalization of essentially 'it's better'.

Other gear if it matters: Arya V3, LCD-X, Focal Clear MG, Senn 800s. Ampsandsound Kenzie Encore, Lyr 3.

 

[simon740]

Some comparisons...

https://www.denafrips.com/single-post/it-breathes-life-into-the-music
https://www.denafrips.com/single-post/every-bowed-string-and-absolutely-zero-digital-glare
https://www.denafrips.com/single-po...ally-have-an-original-way-of-presenting-sound

regards,
Simon

 

[squadgazzz]

Just curious why so many people on youtube and forums suggest using a slow OS mode while non-OS sounds way better?