DENAFRIPS DAC ---- Owner Impressions, Feedback, General Discussion, Questions and more....


Thread for OWNER IMPRESSIONS, FEEDBACK, QUESTIONS, ETC. regarding DENAFRIPS DACs.

DENAFRIPS lists the following R2R DACs:

Ares, Pontus, Venus, and Terminator (in increasing price order).

"DENAFRIPS incorporated in year 2012, focus in developing high end audio equipment at a very affordable price. Throughout the years of intense Research & Development, and continuous improvement of the product lines, DENAFRIPS had finally settled with the current product range equipped with R-2R ladder DAC technology. The reason behind this is the designer strongly believe that R-2R DAC is the best way to reproduce music.

The name, DENAFRIPS, stand for:

D-ynamic
E-xquisite
N-atural
A-ttractive
F-idelity
R-efined
I-ntoxicating
P-ure
S-ophisticated

This mean a lot and it is the house-sound of all DENAFRIPS products." [Copied From Denafrips About Us section]
david_ten
I have a Samsung tv on a wheeled stand and I bring it in the middle sometime to watch TV using my main stereo system, of course using optical. Its working 100% with new DSP. I don't know your problem exactly, but from experience, DT will only decode stereo. If output from your TV was not set to PCM you might hear loud crackling noises if i remember correctly. If its another issue, might be related specifically to the board you have in hand. My experience has been flawless

One other customer has reported the same to Alvin. I also use a Samsung (a 2018 flagship model) and it is set to PCM, as it was with the former board. I immediately checked audio output settings once I heard the problem. I also checked different sources via Optical, same issue. At this point, it appears to be isolated to some boards. I will re-test prior to swapping out the board. My concern is driver damage at the speakers. Putting the old board back in will inform as well.

Denafrips is looking into it.
A brewing thunderstorm allowed for a temporary system shut down. I took the opportunity to re-test the Optical Input sound prior to powering off. Same issues as last night.

Since my system was down, I went ahead and swapped the original Amanero USB / DSP board back in and now have the system up and playing.

Not a single glitch with the Optical Input based Sound (performance and quality) using the original board.

I’ll ping Alvin later since it is 2 am his time.
For those WITH / OR getting the new DSP board, a few points:

1. If you are A/B’ing with the original board, give the original board at least an hour to come into song. Based on what I’m hearing, I recommend a minimum of 3 hours with 5 hours being ideal.

In other words, if you are planning a quick A/B you will not hear the original board at it’s best. I have 7+ hours of play time on the original board, as of now...if I notice any additional improvements, I’ll post accordingly.

Please note: my original board was "out" for 3 days. I can’t speak to times, if your original board is out longer.

2. I have not swapped in the new board, NOR is mine fully run in...therefore, I can not advise on the hours required for it to come on ’song’ once it is fully broken in, dependant on time "out" of system of course.

3. When you swap in the original board, make sure it is fully ’seated.’ When I removed my original board (to swap in the new board), I noticed there was very light "play" in the ’seating.’

Listening to the original board, completely / fully seated, has been a revelation. : )

[Note: as of this point in time I am only using USB in, NOS setting for my comparisons]
Note: a simple FRESH re-seating may be responsible. Similar to what happens with cables, tubes, etc.

For those of you with the original USB / DSP board, I highly recommend doing this. If you do, please share your results. Thanks.