EverSolo DMP-A8 with Denafrips Pontus 15th, both have i2S

Denafrips DAC's require a minimum of 200 hours before they start to settle down. By 500 hours they really don't change much, and they have ebbs and flows along the way. But yes. brightness is common early. My Terminator 15th was a bit bright at first, it took quite a while to smooth out. Along the way bass got better, soundstage grew and the midrange smoothed out too. I had a Venus II before the Terminator, which is pretty much what the Pontus 15th is now. I loved that DAC, it's very good. Just give the Pontus time.

Thanks so much for the guidance!

I guess the question is, how bright was your Terminator before it settled down?  I listened to the Pontus on Saturday and Sunday.  It's Wednesday and my ears still hurt, so I'm just concerned about just how much it could potentially smooth out.

Regarding my setup, the A8 is streaming to the Pontus I2S input via an AudioQuest Forest HDMI cable.  The XLR cables out to my Yamaha receiever and from the receiver to my Parasound Halo A21 amp are AudioQuest Red River.  The amp feeds my Sonus Faber Sonettos. I think the only potential weak link cable wise is the power cable I picked up for the Pontus, it is an AudioQuest NRG-X3.

I also tried a Toslink connection from the A8 to the Pontus as a reference.  It is bright as well.  To my ears, the I2S input showed a slight bit more three dimensionality, detail and fullness.

At this point, the soundstage is very deep and full bodied.  Lots of goosebump inducing sparkle in the treble.  The bass is good, although not quite as present as the A8.  Also not quite as detailed as the A8.  Just too bright.  Not way, way bright, but definitely fatigue inducing, although my abused eardrums may be a bit sensitive at this stage in life.

Tonight I'm going to try RCA out and see if that makes a difference.  And I ordered USB and coaxial cables to try tomorrow. I've read in a couple different threads that USB worked the best on the Pontus.

@pkthesublime  What Yamaha receiver are you using?  That’s a red flag.  Also, how long is the HDMI cable?

It's the RXA-3080.  Getting a little long in the tooth now, but it passes the signal "straight" with no EQ applied, balanced XLR in and balanced XLR out.

The HDMI cable is way longer than 1 foot, I think it's 2 meters (it was an open box special!).