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

Another member on AS provided these Roon settings and I gotta say, I'm really liking them on my Terminator (my ultraRendu is set to native DSD), I am streaming Tidal and local files:

Roon Instructions:

 

In Roon, tap the speaker icon in the bottom right corner, tap "DSP".  tap "Headroom Management", and set the value to -5 dB, this lowers the level before oversampling to avoid clipping during the oversampling process.  In the same field, set "Show Clipping Indicator" to "on".  This will tell you if you have an clipping during playback (if you do, you can lower the headroom management a couple more dB, but usually -5 dB is enough).  Tap, "Sample Rate Conversion", and set sample rate conversion to "DSD".  Set "DSD Sample Rate" to 256,  Set "Sample Rate Conversion Filter" to "Precise, Linear Phase" (I prefer this setting, but you can try others of course).  Set "Sigma Delta Modulator" to "7th order CLANS", leave "SDM Gain Adjustment" at "0", set "Parallelize Sigma-Delta Modulator" to "Yes", set "Enable Native DSD Processing" to "Yes".  The DSD to PCM settings are irrelevant.

Before you exit, double check on the left that "Headroom Management", and "Sample Rate Conversion" are enabled.

Just thought I would share with this group.

P.S.  Looking forward to my Gaia- should ship within the next week or two!

I'm approaching 1000 hours on my Terminator and it's really sounding great. I'm using Roon ROCK on a fanless NUC through an EtherRegen to a Bryston BDP-2 (upgraded audio card) connected to the Terminator through AES3. 

I've found using Roon sample rate conversion to Max PCM Rate (power of 2) with the Precise, Minimum Phase filter, and the Termy set to OS (NOS off) gives me the best sound. 

I haven't experienced any hissing or ringing, but did have an occasional skip or hiccup (maybe once or twice a day). This was after I modified my NUC to use an internal SSD drive instead of a USB drive, but before I added the EtherRegen. I haven't noticed any hiccups on the past few weeks, so I'm not sure if it was related to the changes I made, or just a coincidence.

I'm intrigued by the Gaia, but would probably only consider this if I could replace my Bryston and switch to using USB from the NUC to the Gaia and then I2S to the DAC. I'm be interested to hear how this works for people. 

So I'm a Roon user, and while I get the headroom settings, why on earth would you buy an expensive R2R dac if you are going to feed it DSD??

That makes no sense to me.

+1 @erik_squires . I was thinking the same thing. But it's his ears and his money. If he likes the sound better that way, that's his choice. 

That makes no sense to me.

That is a good (although very direct and raw) remark. I totally agree but you could have added @erik_squires "even more if the source content is native PCM"

This is the way I understand it. Big part of the cost of the Terminator is the good quality and numerous resistors it uses. When you send content to the DAC it will do a lot of things, depending on the input used, buffering and reclocking etc, based on the source content will start the upsampling and digital to analog conversion on one of these two paths, if the content is PCM will be processed over the ladder of resistors and if it is DSD will be processed over the Sigma Delta stage with custom programmed FPGA.

IMO if you have native source content on DSD format well sending direct DSD bypassing the resistor ladder would be possibly advisable. On the other hand if you have PCM (from Tidal, Qobuz) then you could be better off sending PCM to it.

Erik's point I think is you could get a cheaper DS DAC if you prefer DSD (for some reason) and forget about the ladder part.

As said above My preference with the DAC would be sending "converted" (I don't like the term upsampled as I feel it is grammatically incorrect) PCM to max resolution with NOS, but (again) I for some time used a different player (not Roon) sending native Tidal with no conversion and the OS feature engaged and it sounded wonderful, could say different but comparable. After playing much with computers, software and suffering the effects of EMI/RFI I came to realize that if you don't have the time to tweak or if you just want to enjoy digital content with a simplier yet refined digital chain that's where you would be using the Terminator at its best

Please note just like I have my own preferences everyone else in this forum have their own, and I respect that, it is your ears, your perception and your money.

If I am making a false claim above by all means chime in and correct me