2. digital
  3. 174676-157696

Denefrips Pontus "burn in" period?

Hello all

 

Now there's a chance I may be a little premature with this, but I've received my Pontus 8 days ago and have had it running ever since, powered up, most of the time with signal going through it, and so far I'm a little concerned. I am aware that with this particular dac it is recommended to run it roughly 10 days before it really burns in, but being only a couple of days away, I can't say the sound has changed very noticeably. Matter of fact, when I A/B with my project S2 plus dac, and even my blue sound node internal deck, I can barely tell a difference! Does burning happen gradually? Is there all of a sudden a hallelujah moment where this thing starts kicking ass? Does anybody have more experience with this particular piece of gear? Current system is rogue audio ST100 amp, rogadio RP1 preamp, upgraded tubes, blue jean cabling, upgraded power cords on power amp and preamp. I had high hopes that this dac that has received so much high praise was going to blow my meager dacs out of the water, and so far not the case at all. I must say, the thing weighs a ton and looks gorgeous, but I'm getting a little concerned at this point that I may end up disappointed. Talk me off the ledge!

 

128x128jin78
jetter
3,033 posts
 

@jin78 

Hi jin, I also have a Bluesound Node and you should be hearing a substantial improvement over its internal DAC.

I am using the very affordable Signal Cable digital coax between the BS node and my DAC and it made a nice difference.

Also, I have used both the Blue Jean Canare and Belden speaker cables.  In my system, the Belden speaker cables sounded like the proverbial wet blanket was over my system, compared to the Canare cable.  Just my 2 cents.

Besides this, it is sounding like you may have a unit that is not functioning correctly.

 

totem395
390 posts
 

 it is also known that the pontus does not play particularly well with b-s node digital output

Alvin actually stated it was the Aries II that has a compatibility issue 

with the Node coax input.

 Owning a R2R DAC my beliefs are they are more subject to temp stability

and burn in than traditional chip DAC's. My burn in was 4 weeks cycling between

full on and standby never completely off. I usually since the room is coolish power up fully at least an hour or so prior to critical listening.

 

arafiq's avatar
arafiq
1,681 posts
 

I don't know which Bluesound Node 2 generation the OP has, but I can tell you the coax or toslink connections on the previous gen are a limiting factor. When I was using BS with various DACs, I was having a hard time discerning differences between a few DACs I tried. It was only after I moved to a better streamer supporting USB out that I was able to extract more out of my DACs. 

I have a Terminator II in my main system and recently bought an Ares II for the home office system. Both took over 100 hours to sound good. When I first got the Ares II, I wasn't sure what the fuss was about. It sounded pretty ordinary. But after two weeks, it came alive. I'm still shocked how well a DAC costing roughly $800 USD can perform. It is certainly better than my Audio Mirror Tubadour III (non-SE version) for sure. 

 

lordrootman's avatar
lordrootman
379 posts
 

After 2 months with Pontus II I sold it 

never sound better than my Cambridge Azur 851N or Cocktail Audio x45 

jin78's avatar
jin78 OP
37 posts
 

@jetter FYI running Canare 4S11 speaker cables. I ordered power cord from Signal for the dac but the connector didn't have the tightest fit, so ordered another video reference PC with tighter connector, awaiting arrival. I'm thinking it may be too early to call it not functioning properly, going to give it another week or so and see what happens.

 

@arafiq I have the latest node. In my head I'm thinking the node may not be the best streamer out there but it should do a decent enough job to where I should tell a difference between a budget dac and a higher end dac? I guess we shall see!

 

 

More to discover