New denafrips DDC (Iris and Gaia)

[Enoji]

My source is my PC so I was wondering if anyone else had tested the Gaia on the Venus 2 with the pc as the source. What kind of improvement have you noticed. Was also curious If anyone who has listened to the Gaia Venus II combo and have heard the Terminator. If so how does it compare. Thank you for your time.

 

[alvin1118]

My source is my PC so I was wondering if anyone else had tested the Gaia on the Venus 2 with the pc as the source. What kind of improvement have you noticed. Was also curious If anyone who has listened to the Gaia Venus II combo and have heard the Terminator. If so how does it compare. Thank you for your time.

Here are some customers' feedback:

• https://www.denafrips.com/single-post/i-am-satisfied-with-the-gaia-and-venus-ii
• https://www.denafrips.com/single-post/i-am-enjoying-the-tremendously

 

[Enoji]

Here are some customers' feedback:

• https://www.denafrips.com/single-post/i-am-satisfied-with-the-gaia-and-venus-ii
• https://www.denafrips.com/single-post/i-am-enjoying-the-tremendously

Thanks for the links. I did not know Denafrips had customer testimonials

 

[alvin1118]

Most welcome sir.
It's encouraging to learn from the customers their first hand experience with the products.

https://www.denafrips.com/news

 

[DenverW]

Most welcome sir.
It's encouraging to learn from the customers their first hand experience with the products.

https://www.denafrips.com/news

Any hope for the iris to have programable I2s like the Hermes in the future? Finding a cable to match the iris and other dacs is not easy as they have to be custom made.

 

[shwnwllms]

Any hope for the iris to have programable I2s like the Hermes in the future? Finding a cable to match the iris and other dacs is not easy as they have to be custom made.

I would try to email Alvin directly, you’ll get a much quicker response. He’s not quick to respond to forum posts. He’s also a reasonable guy, if there are no plans to implement it (or if it’s not possible with the hardware) and the Iris isn’t working for your use case he might be willing to offer you a trade in on the Iris & sell you a Hermes at a reduced rate (it never hurts to ask)

 

[Asimov-kln]

Aloha!
First I got a Denafrips Pontus II and loved it and it's a great bang for the bucks for sure.

However, I am disappointed to get the Denafrips Hermes DDC because in PCM mode its output is limited to 384kz only through I2S and DSD up to 512.
But Pontus II could support up to PCM 1536khz on USB and I2S and DSD1024.
So Hermes is a bottleneck for Pontus and all other DAC. The topline DDC GAIA got the same limitation!! Here is the link: https://www.denafrips.com/specs-hermes

DSD DSD64 (DoP) on Coax/AES/Opt Input & Output
Upto DSD512 On USB Input & I²S Output
PCM 24bits / 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192KHz On All Input & Output
Up to 768KHz On USB Input & Up to 384KHz on I²S Output

I Hope, @alvin1118 could shed some light on this limitation of Denafrips DDC.

 

[sajunky]

@Asimov-kln .
Such limitations are acceptable by many. Why do you want sampling rates above 384k? Pontus upsample everything to the maximum ladder frequency, even in so called NOS mode.

 

[dcguy73]

@Asimov-kln .
Such limitations are acceptable by many. Why do you want sampling rates above 384k? Pontus upsample everything to the maximum ladder frequency, even in so called NOS mode.

He's got a point. I've never understood why the DDCs in the Denafrips lineup have limitations like that when their DACs don't.

 

[sajunky]

He's got a point. I've never understood why the DDCs in the Denafrips lineup have limitations like that when their DACs don't.

A DAC can fake a support for higher frequencies (like they do it with NOS), with DDC it wouldn't work for long.... It is why.

Anyway, anything higher than 384k serve no purpose, this is a fact. There is no need to put presure on Denafrips on this issue.

 

[dcguy73]

A DAC can fake a support for higher frequencies (like they do it with NOS), with DDC it wouldn't work for long.... It is why.

Anyway, anything higher than 384k serve no purpose, this is a fact. There is no need to put presure on Denafrips on this issue.

I don't understand your explanation. Let's agree to disagree. I see no issue asking @alvin1118 about this.

 

[shwnwllms]

I don't understand your explanation. Let's agree to disagree. I see no issue asking @alvin1118 about this.

As I understand it, its a limitation of the I2S protocol and how it handles data. There are 2 clocks at play, a word clock (or L/R clock) and a bit clock to keep everything synced after the incoming channels are split. If your maximum USB input is 768k (DoP) then your I2S output will be half that after the channels are split into L/R. So even though the clocks themselves are capable of 768k, because of the way I2S handles data your output is now 384k. It would take a much higher end clock than what the entry level Iris is capable of, this would increase cost significantly (and I am not sure there are many entry level DDC's that would be capable of outputting 768k anyway.)

Alvin doesn't monitor the forums, but if you send him an email I'm sure he would be able to explain it better than I did.

 

[sajunky]

As I understand it, its a limitation of the I2S protocol and how it handles data. There are 2 clocks at play, a word clock (or L/R clock) and a bit clock to keep everything synced after the incoming channels are split. If your maximum USB input is 768k (DoP) then your I2S output will be half that after the channels are split into L/R. So even though the clocks themselves are capable of 768k, because of the way I2S handles data your output is now 384k. It would take a much higher end clock than what the entry level Iris is capable of, this would increase cost significantly (and I am not sure there are many entry level DDC's that would be capable of outputting 768k anyway.)

Alvin doesn't monitor the forums, but if you send him an email I'm sure he would be able to explain it better than I did.

Gustard DDC-U18:
I2S output: PCM 32bit 44.1-768kHz, DSD64-DSD512
$474 Amazon

Edit: No likes?

 

[gimmeheadroom]

It's difficult to find anything higher than DSD64 (SACD) in mainstream recordings. There are a very few sites that sell upsampled DSD and maybe one that records in DSD128 or higher. So yeah, technically you could call a DDC that can only do PCM 384 / DXD and DSD512 a bottleneck. But that's only in theory, since there is basically no music to buy. And the way things are going, it's doubtful there will ever be any music at those rates.

I realize some people are upsampling, so as @sajunky suggested, let the DAC do it, not hqplayer...

 

[dougms3]

It's difficult to find anything higher than DSD64 (SACD) in mainstream recordings. There are a very few sites that sell upsampled DSD and maybe one that records in DSD128 or higher. So yeah, technically you could call a DDC that can only do PCM 384 / DXD and DSD512 a bottleneck. But that's only in theory, since there is basically no music to buy. And the way things are going, it's doubtful there will ever be any music at those rates.

I realize some people are upsampling, so as @sajunky suggested, let the DAC do it, not hqplayer...

I think I'm one of the few people that uses DSD upsampling.

To use it, the dac has to natively support dsd512 and you need software like Jriver that can process dsd512. HQ player is the only program that I know of that supports upsampling over dsd512. It does sound better but not by that much from what I can tell. Not a fan of HQ player's GUI.