Denafrips DACs

[ktm]

Flavor Of The Month.

You see a lot of that over at that "other" headphone site.

Something is the hot new thing that everybody wants. A month later,

nobody cares. Time for a Head-case dictionary?

[JimL]

FOTM = Flavor Of The Month, i.e. whatever is the latest internet favorite, generally replaced as soon as something new comes along.

[wink]

[penmarker]

 

[spritzer]

Speaking of the devil...

https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x-airist-audio-r-2r-dac

 

Edited June 7, 2018 by spritzer

[Mario_Fpolis]

And regarding this new Dac, there is a pretty serious discussion regarding stealing someone´s implementation/design/whole board,

https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x-airist-audio-r-2r-dac/talk/2098625?utm_source=linkshare&referer=BW5T38

And the usual forums has the usual discussion about it.

Me, I´m just  

 

[spritzer]

Nice!!  I love a good dumpster fire!! 

[Laowei]

Bum fight! 

[Wizzer]

I just had the Denafrips terminator for acouple weeks for a good listen , borrowed from a friend ,  Pretty good but I won’t be getting rid of my Rockna dac anytime soon .

[wink]

Get the new YGGY......

[Wizzer]

11 hours ago, wink said:

Get the new YGGY......

I bought the new Yggdrasil analog 2 this past January , Anyway it’s a decent dac for the asking price .

[Spychedelic Whale]

Have any one compared the Denafrip Ares with one of the soekris Dacs? I'm tempted by the Ares, but the other being in Europe makes it easier with customs.

[skullguise]

Didn't have them at the same time, but I had the Ares, then later got the Soekris 1541 DAC/Amp (still have that).  About twice as much, but definitely more refined, a bit more transparent, and I THINK a bit better extension at both frequency extremes.  Twice as good?  No....but better overall.

I also owned the USB-powered 1101....not as good as the desktop unit, but better than several other DAC/amp units I had tried at work.

BTW, the amp sections on the 1541 is just good, not great.  A fair bit lost compared to putting the line outs to a nicer external amp.  I'm using mine with an ECP DSHA-3F (custom output for the Focal phones).

[Rhamnetin]

Not a fan of the Denafrips Venus personally. Too soft sounding with slow decay and blurry attack, too laid back (reduced treble extension), bass loses clarity and impact, everything loses weight and transparency... and this is all compared to the Chord Hugo 2.

[Torpedo]

 the other place must be closed.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Torpedo

[johnwmclean]

Bring back the  

Anyone had time with a RME ADI 2 DAC?

[RudeWolf]

1 hour ago, johnwmclean said:

Bring back the  

Anyone had time with a RME ADI 2 DAC?

I've owned the ADI-2 Pro AE since it's inception (got the 3rd unit off the line) and for almost a year used an ADI-2 DAC in the office. Also I've been discussing both of them with their designer Matthias Carstens.

What can I do for you?

[MLA]

2 hours ago, johnwmclean said:

Anyone had time with a RME ADI 2 DAC?

Got it a few months back. Will not be selling it.

Sound is great, parametric eq is really handy for some hp’s/recordings, and it gets reassuringly warm  

Archimago has all the numbers:

http://archimago.blogspot.com/2018/10/measurements-rme-adi-2-pro-fs-as-dac.html?m=1

[RudeWolf]

Anyways, here's my 2 eurocents.

It's really all about the features and wether you care to benefit from them. It comes with a 100 page manual and it's worth to actually go through it. Almost every aspect of it makes the purist stuff from most audiophile mfg's look stone age. You get one of the best digital volume controls out there, 5 band stereo PEQ, unique loudness compensation, dicking around with DAC filters, all kinds of X-feed and much more.

It measures impeccably. I'm half sure that my Pro can give lab grade measurement stuff from AP a run for their money. As for the sound, I enjoy it. If you're used to THD, then it might feel too naked. I've heard people say that. Simple music like strings with solo vocals can sound richer on dirtier sources, the problem is that this richness gets in way of spectrally busier records like metal and such. And I personally like to feel that what I'm hearing is the truth, even if there's no direct way to know that.

[johnwmclean]

Thanks Rudewolf and MLA, I’m probably going to go for this, it does seem like a good choice amongst current DACs.

[RudeWolf]

If you can make do with just the DAC, then this is a nice choice, if a tad ugly - http://www.rme-audio.de/en/products/adi_2_fs.php Comes around 30% cheaper that the ADI-2 DAC, but the DAC and headamp circuit is the same.

I really enjoy the fact that the ADI-2 Pro is a 4 channel DAC, so I can run my subs digitally crossed over and room corrected.