Denafrips R2R DAC

We had another comparison with the Bifrost Multibit and the Ares, using the Neve Headphone amp and the Utopia, for the person looking to spend exactly $600 on a DAC who has a $500 amp and $4000 headphones. My Ares is awaiting mailing to be exchanged due to its USB input seeming to be compromised, so we started with the Ares via optical and the Bifrost Multibit via USB. It became a question of preferences, with the Bifrost Multibit sounding exaggerated but also more enjoyable in both bass and soundstage, and the Ares doing well in other ways but song to song one DAC never stood above the other.

As an equalizing measure, and because this imaginary audiophile wants a $600 DAC to use with his $400 (+PSU mods $$$) Singxer SU-1, we inserted the D2D converter and went coaxial SPDIF into both DACs. There was an immediate and obvious change: the Bifrost Multibit remained exaggerated and sounded a bit rough relative to the now significantly more natural and controlled Ares. There was not a genre we tried that the Ares was not unanimously preferred. The optical might also be compromised on my Ares, but I would avoid it regardless.

I've been lending the Ares to someone with a Spring Lvl. 3 and he has been extremely impressed. He may be considering trying a Pontus.

Before we packed up I listened to a few songs to compare the Ares to the MHDT Stockholm V2. In a predictable result, given their topologies, I leaned toward the MHDT for jazz ensembles and the Ares for anything electronic. I'll admit a bias towards the MHDT, but I'm also searching for a DAC in this price range and would be very happy to find that the Ares is indisputably what I want. I didn't think in a note-taking way as I was earlier, but I believe the difference was that the MHDT, presenting a group of people playing instruments, gave a much better sense of space and layering, which is a quality I rank very highly. The Ares had better all-around bass and cleaner presentation of electronic music.

 

People aren't good at listening critically- even for gross differences. The subtleties of DACs? Forget it. That's why some of us value this place, and freaks like you, @Marvey and @Torq. Decent listeners with self-consistent and well-explained tastes are a godsend when you can't get to audition a bit of gear yourself prior to taking the plunge.

(There's a lot of irritating randothusiasm over random DACs around here right now, esp about the Denafrips, the Soekris and amazingly, the Mojo, mind you.. so we still have to mentally filter to mostly get solid impressions from people with enough of a basis to compare properly. Luckily, I think I'm sorted for the foreseeable future with a Gungnir Multibit, which avoids the dangers of HF-style hype trains.)

 

Denafrips Ares is a good product that performs excellently. I was part of a group of guys from South Africa who ordered it with out an audition. We all live in far apart from each other and are not really associated as friends. Our collective experience of the DAC is positive and for us the $600 translates to close to ZAR 10 000 including import fees and postage, so its not cheap in the end. Its still a great product and I love mine.

 

You may want to, as the forum header indicates, introduce yourself and take a quick look at the pulpit.

While you may like your new purchase a lot, your opinion is not useful since A) there's no known reference, B) we don't know what you've actually listened to before, and C) you just don't have the credibility.

Don't take C) as offensive, most people here don't have credibility too, only certain members like Torq, Marvey, Hands, etc have left enough volumes of consistent opinion to have established themselves.

 

Chris cape town South Africa. Audio enthusiast and member of the cape Town Hi fi club for 25 years. We are a group of music and gear lovers who meet once a month. I have been around the stereo hi fi block a few times and still enjoy the hobby. Hi res digital a recent direction so listen to as many dacs as possible with hi fi club: The most pricey so far has been the lampizator golden gate. I was just sharing experiences I have had with Ares - in no way did I assume it to be an authoratative opinion. The guy at head fi did a similar thing and the first question he was asked is if he is associated with the company when he sang the praises of the Ares. Is this not a sharing forum? Is this a place for arrogant folk who think they've seen and heard it all? Credibility? What kind of credibility? This is a public forum or is it some secret society. Credential;s needed ? CV? Lets listen to music, be open to broad opinions and enjoy the hobby. I detect a northern hemisphere arrogance in your tone Grahad2 - we live in a globalised world where opinions matter and not empty arrogance. Wake up !!!

 

The thread for introducing yourself is here. And, since it appears that you haven't, you'll want to read this before you do anything else.

Signal to noise ratio is highly valued here. Any new member posting "I like X" with no context, with no one knowing who they are, and without references and comparisons to some, well-known, baseline, is very definitely in the "noise" category. It tells no one anything of value.

Saying "I like X" when we know something about your listening preferences, what signature you like, what you've heard and how you'd describe it vs. what you're saying you like, would be considered "signal". Making a first-post on a new site, without understanding what that site is about, praising a product with no other useful context is a bit odd to me. Partly because it conveys no useful information, and partly because it doesn't strike me as normal behavior. Hence the suspicion that such posts are from people with a vested interested in a specific product, outright shills, or fanboys.

Your opinions, just like everyone else's, are worthless without context.

With my tongue only partially in my cheek, I'd say it's closer to the latter than former - at least given way new members often seem to mean it when they say things like "public forum".

Informed, contextualized, opinions matter.

Absent that, it's just random noise - random, uncontextualized opinions are worthless to anyone but the opinion holder.

...

I look at the link in your first (I think) post, and see a comparison that doesn't gel with what you said. And then if I ignore your comments and just read the linked thread, I see so many problems with the evaluation that it makes my head spin. Not only is there too much missing information for it to be useful, what IS there makes it very hard to take it seriously.

 

Sincere apologies for loooooong silent. We've been way too busy in fulfilling orders, that's a happy business problem isn't it

Guess what we need here is to launch a loaner program of DENAFRIPS DAC to allow the loaner(s) to judge for themselves how good (or bad perhaps) is it.
I'm ready to send a DENAFRIPS Pontus early next week 14th June for @Torq and SBAF loaner program, whichever is more feasible should go first. Let me know how should i proceed?

e: [email protected]

 

Okay sir, i will PM them right away.

 

I'd jump on that loaner tour, especially since I've got a Holo Spring L3 and will also have a Soekris DAC1101 back on my desk soon as well, so with the Ares could be a shootout across three different recent R2R implementations. Cheers

 

Is this one of those DBTs that I've been hearing so much about?

 

Loki?? Lol....

 

Glancing at that spreadsheet, I misread "musicality" as "masculinity" and was suddenly very confused by the evaluation methodology...

 

Implying there IS special firmware from Schiit to do this?

 

Chris. Don't take anything too personally or seriously. This is part of our hazing ritual. We're just a bunch of eleven year old kids.

Masquerading as "scientific" reviewers and evaluators. Enjoy your little universe

 

Howzit @ChrisWP! As a fellow Capetonian I urge you to have a little patience. Yeah, the crowd is rough here. But there are some really sharp people on this forum - as in no f'ing around really sharp people. They wouldn't be here if the signal to noise ratio was as bad as Head-Fi etc., and believe me there are morons at the gates. You're not going to find any other audio forum that has the caliber of contributors that sbaf has.

Yeah, there are self-appointed sbaf keeper-of-the-gate types who can be douchebags. And some don't necessarily do much for the S/N ratio, but nothing is perfect. Honestly there is no better deterrent to people who just want to read themselves post crap about crap than getting godawfully offended on the doorstep and turning away. Do some digging to see who Marvey, Torq, AtomicBob and others on here are before you decide to shitcan the forum.

If you are godawfully offended and can't get around it, well, such is life. Peace out, move on.