Best place to purchase a new Denafrips Pontus II

Also a happy Pontus II owner here. Contemplating whether to get Hermes DDC! 😃

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?