Denafrips Ares ii

@j_andrews 
 

does it really matter if usb or coax is used?

I use both; a digital RCA from my CD transport, and a USB from my streamer. Both sound very good to me, but are obviously different per the source.

@j_andrews 
Curious if you've tested digital RCA vs. USB going from your iFi Zen Stream to your Denafrips DAC?

Which cables did you use? Did you notice any difference?

@vsrrr

initially I was only using digital rca (blue jeans cable) and I was quite happy with it .

the ZS has some filtering or purifying circuitry on the spdif output

after I got the Iris ddc I changed my setup

now I go into the Iris out of the Zen Stream via USB (Curious cable) and then out of the Iris into 2 dacs connected to 2 different amps. In one case I go out optical to my Ares ii with a nice glass cable … I also simultaneously output coax into my Border Patrol dac which feds my set amp

i feel the output of the zen stream (usb or spdif) made less of a difference in my system than the input of the Ares ii did.
I felt that the coax input into the Ares had a bit more weight than the glass input.

but now that’s a moot point since I’m using the Iris to feed both dacs as described above

@j_andrews  Interesting!

And would you say that

1. iFi ZS > USB > Iris DDC > SPIDF > Ares DAC
sounds noticeably better than
2. iFi ZS > SPIDF > Ares DAC?

Since the iFi ZS has both USB and SPIDF outputs, my thinking was to use option 2, since using the SPIDF would completely avoid the jitter issues inherent to USB (as far as I understand).

I’d be super curious to learn if you get better results from your iFi ZS and Ares by removing the USB and Iris DDC and simply using a good SPIDF cable. I suspect you will!