Denafrips Ares Resistor laddter DAC - anyone?

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Anyone hear this DAC?  Uses a resistor ladder for the conversion.

 

Looks interesting and should appeal to all here.  He used Fortes for his review. 

 

 

 

[pzannucci]

Apparently v1 isn't available anymore and there is a v2.  Looks to be twice the price unless that is a converted price.

[Schu]

me... Ive ordered a Terminator.

should be interesting because it's cheaper than my current delta sigma... but I am not WANTING for anything with my current DAC.

I am really hoping it's more than merely gain that is all to often touted as being 'better' 

[tigerwoodKhorns]

11 hours ago, Schu said:

me... Ive ordered a Terminator.

should be interesting because it's cheaper than my current delta sigma... but I am not WANTING for anything with my current DAC.

I am really hoping it's more than merely gain that is all to often touted as being 'better' 

Start a thread when you get it. 

[rplace]

On 12/29/2019 at 10:56 AM, Schu said:

me... Ive ordered a Terminator.

should be interesting because it's cheaper than my current delta sigma... but I am not WANTING for anything with my current DAC.

I am really hoping it's more than merely gain that is all to often touted as being 'better' 

 

Reviving old thread from the dead for Halloween. Did you actually take possession of the Terminator. I'm thinking about one but no way to demo, so I'm curious to know your impressions. Also considering Holo May.

[Panelhead]

  Stereiphile reviewed the 4500.00 Terminator and the 800.00 Aries II. Both delivered State of the Art resolution. Measured the same. 22 bit resolution, dCS stack, Mola Mola, Dave, other extreme high dollar units can barely match the Aires II. 

  I had my doubts, most R2R do not match 100.00 delta sigma dacs. The May and Denafrips exceed delta sigma. Think they utilize a FPGA to correct errors. 

  Alvin Chee is super nice also. He said these were as good as any dac available. The Stereophile tests confirm it.

  They have a couple amplifiers that have AHB2 range specs. Alvin said each one is tested on an AP before shipping. 

 

[OO1]

the A

26 minutes ago, Panelhead said:

  Stereiphile reviewed the 4500.00 Terminator and the 800.00 Aries II.

 

The Aries II is around  1200$   , where did you see it a 800$ -

[justonemore]

The Ares is 1028 singapore dollars which is 755US. I don't know what shipping is. This is from Vinshine Audio in Singapore. I've been having problems with my Audio-gd dac-19th anniversary. If a firmware update doesn't fix it I might try the ares.

[rplace]

16 minutes ago, justonemore said:

The Ares is 1028 singapore dollars which is 755US. I don't know what shipping is. This is from Vinshine Audio in Singapore. I've been having problems with my Audio-gd dac-19th anniversary. If a firmware update doesn't fix it I might try the ares.

 

Free Shipping Worldwide...says the web site.

 

So @Schu Do you have a terminator? I don't see it in your signature.

[Fido]

I have the Denefrips Pontus and it sounds fantastic. I play my Blueos Node 2i thru it usually running Tidal and to my ears with my system I think it sounds fantastic. Very close to listening to Vinyl as less glare and less digital sounding to my ears than the Dac in the Node 2i or the old sigma Dac chipped I used to run. Your experience may vary.

[Schu]

19 minutes ago, rplace said:

 

Free Shipping Worldwide...says the web site.

 

So @Schu Do you have a terminator? I don't see it in your signature.

I prefered the Wyred 2v2se... it had immediacy and speed that the r2r didn't match IN MY SYSTEM. The terminator was great imho, but I could only keep one. Its the same price point so take that for what it's worth. The denafrips would have blown the regular Wyred dac2 out of the water, but the 10th anniversary dac is a special beast. Currently, I am in want of NOTHING... so much so that I am in no rush to get Jubilees, unless a deal drops somewhere sometime.

 

If I hadn't already had the 2v2se and I was just looking to buy a truly great DAC, I would NOT hesitate to buy a Denafrips, at any of their price points.

[Schu]

3 minutes ago, Fido said:

I have the Denefrips Pontus and it sounds fantastic. I play my Blueos Node 2i thru it usually running Tidal and to my ears with my system I think it sounds fantastic. Very close to listening to Vinyl as less glare and less digital sounding to my ears than the Dac in the Node 2i or the old sigma Dac chipped I used to run. Your experience may vary.

How do you output from the BN without double processing the signal?

[rplace]

1 hour ago, Schu said:

I prefered the Wyred 2v2se... it had immediacy and speed that the r2r didn't match IN MY SYSTEM. The terminator was great imho, but I could only keep one. Its the same price point so take that for what it's worth. The denafrips would have blown the regular Wyred dac2 out of the water, but the 10th anniversary dac is a special beast. Currently, I am in want of NOTHING... so much so that I am in no rush to get Jubilees, unless a deal drops somewhere sometime.

 

If I hadn't already had the 2v2se and I was just looking to buy a truly great DAC, I would NOT hesitate to buy a Denafrips, at any of their price points.

 

Thanks for the input.

 

I started out looking at more main stream DACs like Mytek and Lumin. There at plenty used for sale....that says something, right? Holo and Denafrips are another story. Not many on the used market. Is that just because of the numbers sold...I don't know. I'm new to all of this as I've been trying to avoid a DAC for 15+ years and be purely vinyl. If I can get something that comes close to my vinyl rig I might be tempted to simplify my life not to mention save a lot of space. Especially in about 3-5 years. Time to say goodbye to big house and big acreage. 

 

Not being able to demo has me tempted to get a sub ~$1,000 Schiit or similar, but I'd really like for once in my life to buy once and be done. I'm growing tired of buy, try, sell, repeat. Not a bad word that I can find for Denafrips. Holo has lots of praise on both the reviews and measurements. Seems like a lot of time, those two camps are at odds.

 

I'm about 12-15 years into a serious vinyl vision quest. What is the magic wand that just drops the perfect, single, DAC in my lap?

 

Currently I have a Oppo-203, RPi 4 with HiFiBerry DAC and a PecanPi Streamer. All are nice, but my biggest gripe is the flat sound stage. Very one dimensional. Good Stereo imaging left to right from all, but no height or depth like my Turn Table.

[Fido]

2 hours ago, Schu said:

How do you output from the BN without double processing the signal?

I use the coaxial output on the Node 2i and bypass its built in DAC by going directly to the Denefrips.

[Fido]

2 hours ago, rplace said:

 

Thanks for the input.

 

I started out looking at more main stream DACs like Mytek and Lumin. There at plenty used for sale....that says something, right? Holo and Denafrips are another story. Not many on the used market. Is that just because of the numbers sold...I don't know. I'm new to all of this as I've been trying to avoid a DAC for 15+ years and be purely vinyl. If I can get something that comes close to my vinyl rig I might be tempted to simplify my life not to mention save a lot of space. Especially in about 3-5 years. Time to say goodbye to big house and big acreage. 

 

Not being able to demo has me tempted to get a sub ~$1,000 Schiit or similar, but I'd really like for once in my life to buy once and be done. I'm growing tired of buy, try, sell, repeat. Not a bad word that I can find for Denafrips. Holo has lots of praise on both the reviews and measurements. Seems like a lot of time, those two camps are at odds.

 

I'm about 12-15 years into a serious vinyl vision quest. What is the magic wand that just drops the perfect, single, DAC in my lap?

 

Currently I have a Oppo-203, RPi 4 with HiFiBerry DAC and a PecanPi Streamer. All are nice, but my biggest gripe is the flat sound stage. Very one dimensional. Good Stereo imaging left to right from all, but no height or depth like my Turn Table.

I love the sound stage of a good vinyl rig so I still love playing records... - but... I must admit I listen to a lot more streamed music now that I have the Pontus because its closer to sounding like vinyl than anything I have ever heard. Having 300 plus albums takes up a lot of space. Streaming as much music as possible takes up zero space and there is a lot of great music that never has been on vinyl. Even if there was every record I could ever want I have no space to add more lp's to my collection. You might want to listen to a Pontus or a Terminator and see if it checks off most of your boxes.

[Shakeydeal]

3 hours ago, Fido said:

I love the sound stage of a good vinyl rig so I still love playing records... - but... I must admit I listen to a lot more streamed music now that I have the Pontus because its closer to sounding like vinyl than anything I have ever heard. Having 300 plus albums takes up a lot of space. Streaming as much music as possible takes up zero space and there is a lot of great music that never has been on vinyl. Even if there was every record I could ever want I have no space to add more lp's to my collection. You might want to listen to a Pontus or a Terminator and see if it checks off most of your boxes.

I feel ya. I have a Lumin streamer mated to an MHDT Pagoda DAC (another R2R dac) and the sound is so good that I don’t play nearly as much vinyl as I once did. I never thought I would say that.

 

Shakey

[Fido]

5 hours ago, Shakeydeal said:

I feel ya. I have a Lumin streamer mated to an MHDT Pagoda DAC (another R2R dac) and the sound is so good that I don’t play nearly as much vinyl as I once did. I never thought I would say that.

 

Shakey

I bet that combo of the Lumin streamer and the MHDT Pagoda sounds incredible. 

[Schu]

That buy rinse repeat scene is very exhausting... that's why my I haven't really made any changes in about a year in my system, I am VERY happy where I am at. 

 

The digital section of my system sounds so good that I don't even want to venture back into vinyl... and I have over a thousand LPs, some of which are pretty valuable and rare. I've been down the vinyl rabbit hole and was happy, however the act of playing a record here in the desert is a whole process and I am tired of that... on top of it all is the surface noises physical contact causes in a high resooution system and I dont get from a digital playback.

 

I have seen several Denafrips Terminators for sale and more for the lower DACs from that line, but they seem to sell faily quickly because of the depreciation which seems to run around 25%-30%.

[Fido]

3 hours ago, Schu said:

That buy rinse repeat scene is very exhausting... that's why my I haven't really made any changes in about a year in my system, I am VERY happy where I am at. 

 

The digital section of my system sounds so good that I don't even want to venture back into vinyl... and I have over a thousand LPs, some of which are pretty valuable and rare. I've been down the vinyl rabbit hole and was happy, however the act of playing a record here in the desert is a whole process and I am tired of that... on top of it all is the surface noises physical contact causes in a high resooution system and I dont get from a digital playback.

 

I have seen several Denafrips Terminators for sale and more for the lower DACs from that line, but they seem to sell faily quickly because of the depreciation which seems to run around 25%-30%.

One last thing about the Denefrips Dacs. The customer service by Alvin at Vinshine is exemplary. The Dacs are beautifully crafted and Alvin makes you feel like he is your personal audio advocate. 

[dubai2000]

Of course I am late to the party, but since I bought a second-hand Ares I my digital quest is (almost) over - it is cerainly the least digital sounding digital source that I have owned so far - so why "almost"? Because the Ares simply tempts to upgrade - so one more "step up the ladder" it is going to be (hopefully soon) - thus the Pontus should be my next audio purchase.