Denafrips Pontus II vs Venus II

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.)

I did not audition a Venus, but I do have a Denafrips stack that I adore (Pontus II DAC, Hades Pre-Amp, and Thallo Amp…..all true balanced with Morrow XLR cables driving a pair of Buchardt Audio S400 Mk II speakers. After all we’re broken in, I am in love with the music.

however, I have the Audiophile sickness and reached out to Alvin at Vinshine to see if he thought I could improve things even further. He suggested the Iris DDC feeding I2S to the Pontus, and pointed me to the British Audiophile video. So I have taken possession of said Iris, and will install in the next month after a couple of cables are broken in another 100 hours or so. I’m hoping there is a noticeable improvement can be made