Adding a Dac and Stresmer


Looking for some advice and need you guys to check my thinking…
I have a PrimaLuna Preamp and Amplifier…..need a Dac and streamer….Being I have a preamp to my thinking I don’t need a Dac that has a preamp and volume, am I thinking right? The speakers are Klipsch Heritage so I think I should get a mellow sounding Dac, maybe a Denifrips Pontus with the Auralic Aries G1.1…..would be happy with a $5000 budget…

silverfoxvtx1800

Showing 2 responses by tom2441

@soix   This is the exact digital front end I am using, Innuos Pulse Mini to Iris to Pontus II via I2S.  The Pulse Mini running the Sense app was a big step up from the Roon Nucleus I was using as a streamer with Roon even though I am a big fan of Roon. I also have a Keces P3 LPS powering the Pulse Mini.  Very resolving and hard to beat for the total cost I believe (especially used).  My next step is to install the Denafrips firmware upgrade for the Pontus II that is supposed to be another improvement in performance.

@soix I never actually tried it without the LPS as I had it already set up and just plugged it in.  My guess is that it was an incremental improvement but my real surprise was with the Sense app and the quality versus using Roon.  I didn’t want it to be given how good the Roon interface is but the sound quality difference was obvious.

And thanks for the heads up on the Pontus firmware upgrade.  I read the string discussing the pros and cons on here and think I'll wait until the consensus is clear!