Denafrips Pontus II vs Venus II

@stevebohnii

I want to stay humble and precise, so I just did the old Hermes bypass test... again. I listened to the album "Harp Favorites" by Floraleda Sacchi on Qobuz to test the difference. I find harp recordings to be one of the best ways to test many aspects of sound, including attack, decay, and the whole freq range from very high down to low mid-range and sometimes upper bass. For soundstage, not so much though. Anyway, I re-confirmed that Pontus II by itself outputs a lesser degree of finesse, speed, dynamics, and decay refinement.

I bought the Bricasti M5 new. For a power cord on my Pontus II, I’m using the Acoustic Zen Krakatoa. It has fantastic top end detail, and very fast and thunderous deep bass. However, the mid-bass and mid-range are recessed. When I use an Acoustic Zen Absolute Copper interconnect between my pre and power amp, it totally fills in that freq range with a very pleasing fullness without sacrificing any details. Without having found that synergy, I would have abandoned the Krakatoa. But with it, I’m extremely pleased! None of the power cords on my Pontus II come anywhere as close to the sub-bass extension and speed as the Krakatoa, which is especially revealed by a Rythmik F12G subwoofer + Zavfino power cable.

Maybe this is a better I2S option for the price, as they explicitly state that it uses OCC silver conductors:

 

I have the Venus II and a Hermes combination. I use the Tubulus Argentus I2s between them. I cannot comment on the comparison between then Pontus II and Venus II as I have never compared them. I have removed the Hermes from the system when doing some troubleshooting that later revealed a problem in my preamp which is in for repair now. When I removed the Hermes I found that the soundstage shrunk  a bit and the bass was less defined with less authority. It was good to find that the Hermes was helping it along. I believe this combination is doing a great job and my musical enjoyment is relished each time I listen. I have read that you get amore detail retrieval from the Venus II vs the Pontus II in reviews i have read. It's build is more similar to the Terminator with the better resisters and more of them which helps it's detail  more I think. These DAC's do take a tremendous amount of patience to break in and just keep getting better as the hundreds of hours pile up. Good luck with your decision, I always get the best I can afford to keep from wanting to upgrade and lose on my investments when ever I can. 

Those of you who are using a reclocker, are you streaming from a PC or a dedicated streamer? Alvin alluded that when using something like a Lumin streamer, the DDC might not be such an improvement. Just curious.

@ozzy62   For me I am connected via AES/EBU from a CEC TL1x CD transport and via Coax from a dedicated streamer Cambridge CXN V2. ( Orchid AES/EBU and Illuminations D60 coax.)