DENAFRIPS DAC ---- Owner Impressions, Feedback, General Discussion, Questions and more....

Glad to see this level of enthusiasm for Vinh's room, including the DENAFRIPS.

Now that there's some distance between the show, I'd like to hear more perspectives.

As for me, my opinion remains the four products slot far closer than one would expect or believe.  As stated previously, I needed to work at distinguishing them, including the entry level Ares from the statement Terminator.  You do get more from moving up the ladder: more solidity, more heft, more extension, more liquidity, more clarity.  But the improvements were, for me, subtle, only identifiable in direct comparison, and even at that, requiring my full attention.  It seemed to reflect what spending more time, effort, and funds on a power supply typically yields.  And after thinking on this, I don't see the value of the four products, and wonder if there's any sense in combining the middle products into a single offering.

Finally, I'm not currently up on the SOTA digital, but the DENAFRIPS products certainly show me how much things have improved over the years.  Still, to my ears, the sad conclusion is we're still not knocking on the door of what analog provides 

Trelja (Joe) If I have extra money I will get the terminator, or even the Pontus, to my surprise my ears prefer the Ares , for my taste it’s more lively, bigger sounding, but less black background, As good as Vinh set up at Axpona I did have a hard figuring out which DAC is playing.I heard all three except Venus.i can strongly recommend Denafrips dacs...you have four dacs to choose from...Joe digital will never beat vynil, why I decided to have vynil and digital..vynil is a lot of work but the music and sound it’s all worth it.....

Interesting DAC. I have followed this thread for a few days now. So was wondering what's up with the guys at Audiostream. They compared 4 DACs and found the Terminator to be "confusing". Because Denafrips don't advertise in their rag?

milpai

Interesting DAC. I have followed this thread for a few days now. So was wondering what’s up with the guys at Audiostream. They compared 4 DACs and found the Terminator to be "confusing". Because Denafrips don’t advertise in their rag?

To me when a system get really good at resolving, it a bit like big screen tv’s. The flagship tv models are magnificent with HD input but are worse than the same size low end model with SD input.

Same to me goes for audio, the better the component the better it is on great recordings, but they sound rubbish on bad recordings.
It’s like the other not so great component, throws a ban-aid on the music to equalise good from bad recordings like the low end tv above does.

This statement from the reviewer kind of say that to me.
" The Denafrips won the award for the most confusing DAC as you never knew what you’d get from a recording when played through it!
Read more at https://www.audiostream.com/content/great-dac#6OCdCOe5RwkRDQJ9.99 "


Cheers George

When I heard the terminator at Axpona 2018 , It sounds very good, Vinh played different kinds of music, with ease and effortlessly, I was in that room for three days, Music came out very involving, soundstage is huge, it’s very 3D .Thats what I heard in that system....