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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
jin78's avatar
jin78 OP
37 posts
 

@arafiq currently feeding the Pontus with a coax cable from blue jean cables. Haven't tried USB,  My limited research seems to suggest that most people prefer coax to USB. Could be wrong, willing to try something different

arafiq's avatar
arafiq
1,681 posts
 

I think a lot depends on the DAC's USB implementation. Maybe I'm in the minority but I've always preferred USB over spdif and definitely over toslink. But then again it could be because the DACs I've owned are better with USB, who knows. Anyways, it's worth trying ... you might still prefer coax.

jjss49's avatar
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jjss49
6,612 posts
 

Alvin actually stated it was the Aries II that has a compatibility issue with the Node coax input.

this is the case with all denafrips dacs and ddc's... the node coax digital output voltage is lower than most other streamers and the denafrips units have trouble receiving - i personally confirmed this with alvin - he actually told me to use optical instead ... 👎

dena gear was the only gear that i ever had this problem with using the node as streaming source... and since 2020 i must have been through 50 dacs, no exaggeration...

jin78's avatar
jin78 OP
37 posts
 

@jjss49 wow! So I guess I should try out the other outputs on the node! Was this confirmed for the latest node?

mr_m
1,900 posts
 

I'm using a older BS Node2 connected to a fully broken in Pontus ll with coax and I'm getting outstanding results. While I haven't tried different streamers, the SQ with coax is still very good. I have a decent turntable setup and while it sounds a bit better than the streamer/dac combination, it doesn't embarrass them either.

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