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

New D/D converters. 
I am toying with the idea of purchasing a GAIA to pair with my Terminator. (Have some other issues to resolve with the Terminator  first, see above posts).


Looking at the Terminator’s block diagram it appears the signal from I2S inputs (coming from the GAIA) is buffered and reclocked again by the Terminators FIFO. Is this correct? Am I reading the diagram correctly?

If so, it seems that most, if not all, the magic of the $2000-ish GAIA’s OCXO clock is for naught if the DAC is basically going to buffer the “perfectly” timed  bits then assign its own timing through a “lesser clock” before sending them on their way.

I’ve seen some anecdotal proclamations that it sounds wonderful. Doesn’t seem to jive with the science. I’m fairly new to all this so please educate me. With the science part preferably. Opinions and individual experiences are valuable, but not what I’m after here.

are you by any chance using HQPlayer or the upsampling

capabilities within Roon?

I am streaming mostly through Qubus and Tidal. A few downloads also.  I’ve been experimenting a lot with up sampling through Roon, sometimes I use it and sometimes I don’t. I have not been paying enough attention to make the connection between upsampling and the hiss. It is so random and intermittent that it will take me a while to check these things.

IME when I was using upsampling, the Terminator board when changing upsampling content / parameters sometimes (and this was very very sporadic) with the latest firmware was playing with a background "ringing" noise, stopping and starting with different source content or powering cycle fixed it. Mainly with PCM which is what I was sending to the board. I expect the next firmware release to fix this.

Thanks Luis. Not sure I would describe the effect the same but possibly the same parameters. A very distinct and loud distortion and hiss. Definitely goes away if I change content or restart the play. I actually was not aware of the firmware updates. I’m guessing it’s going to have to be done with a Windows computer which I don’t have. All Mac and Apple here.  Will look into it. Thanks

Well the only time I experienced a loud distortion and hiss was with the 1st Amanero board, possibly with the end of 2018 firmware for the new board (1st iteration) which was very stable with the update from Nov 2019, that update was revealing. MCU and FPGA update. If your DAC is from Nov 2019 or newer it should have such firmware. Which by the way brings the SQ to an entire new level.