Best place to purchase a new Denafrips Pontus II

I'm also using OS with slow filter. Hearing pretty much what you guys noticed.

@gladmo, interesting you found the coax and optical sound similar. With my previous dac I was limited to optical. Still gonna try a coax to connect to my Node 2. Will see what happens. 

I have tried coax via RCA and BNC, USB, and AES/EBU and prefer the balanced input by a small margin. USB was a close second.

@kw6 You may have caught it in the discussion, but just like ozzy relayed from Alvin at Vinshine Audio, and corroborated by my experience, the Denafrips DDCs can be worth the price if you are using a USB connection from your source.  If you have a higher end source outputting a non-USB signal then I would reconsider the value you think it will add to the Pontus II.  In my case, laptop USB as source (soon to be a dedicated Microsoft Surface Pro 7 tablet with high quality USB cable) using the Hermes with a high quality power cable substantially outperforms the Node via coax/optical in dynamism, details, imaging, extension at both ends, and fullness/liveliness of presentation.  Node is going to find a new home.

Ok thanks gladmo. Read that the Raspberry I2S contraption out performs the Hermes. My other option is to get IFI Zen stream and use USB out. What do you think?

@kw6 I think the clock in the Hermes is the same oven controlled crystal oscillator (OCXO) that Denafrips puts in their Terminator II, which are much more accurate than the FEMTO clock in the Pontus II, as well as the TCXO clock in the more expensive Venus II.  I think I read that OCXO is around an order of magnitude or greater more temperature stable than TXCO.  You'd have to read up on the details of the different types, but a Raspberry Pi beating my Hermes+Pontus II setup in USB sound quality would surprise me.

The one thing I was stressing earlier in this discussion was my finding that the power cable quality/compatibility made a sizable difference in the sound quality of my Hermes, so that would not likely be part of the experiment you are referring to.

I also got the Hermes because of the various inputs... such as toslink optical for a TV.

If you use the IFI Zen streamer with USB out to a Pontus II, you'll be relying on the Pontus II's on-board FEMTO clock quality.  However, the IFI Zen streamer is much less expensive than a Hermes + a streamer/computer.