Denafrips FPGA Firmware Update

My Ares II had the occasional skipping issue.  Also an early production unit, Ares II circuitry in an plain Ares box.  Confirmed by Alvin.  Update went smoothly.  No more skipping.

Prior to the update there was a definite sound difference between positive and negative phase selection. After the update unable to detect a difference.  

Listened to a couple reference tracks prior to update.  Same tracks after the update were much cleaner.  Individual notes had more separation, impact and decay.  Overall, a major improvement.  

@texbychoice

Prior to the update there was a definite sound difference between positive and negative phase selection. After the update unable to detect a difference.

I noticed that also with my Ares II. I almost always used phase with the light on, but after the update, there was much less a difference. In addition, last evening, while streaming (Tidal, not from my server), I tried NOS and I think I now prefer it. Like many, I had it set to OS/slow filter before, but really felt the NOS setting was now more to my liking. I’ll have to check it out when spinning CD’s and playing ripped files on the server too.

Most people I know prefer NOS mode to oversampling. Has a more natural presentation with larger soundstage.

I just noticed something. Right after I installed the update a while back the Phase button was off which I always had on. Today, it hit me, I wondered if the update sort of put all settings back into a default state so I double checked to see that the OS filter was set to Slow, as Fast sounds too bright to me, and sure enough the Fast filter was on! Now I need to listen some more. That has to be part of why I feel the new update has increased the treble more than I like. You all might want to double check your filter setting.