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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
73max
46 posts
 

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.
luisma31
516 posts
 
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.
73max
46 posts
 
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
luisma31
516 posts
 
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.
luisma31
516 posts
 
FWIW and IMO using Roon by itself I prefer the Terminator with PCM max native rate and not upsampling in Roon. Terminator in OS mode (not NOS)
If you use HQPe (which I prefer to Roon alone) then PCM max upsampling 1536 with 19 bits and Termy in NOS mode.
Again this is just my preferenceThis is a wonderful DAC, I would love to hear comments for the DAC and the DDC as well

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