Best place to purchase a new Denafrips Pontus II

My Pontus II landed today after all. Five days from Singapore is damn impressive. The build quality is hard to fault, and the sound after a couple hours warm up is pretty good. I’m sure the best is yet to come.

Another shout out to Alvin and team Vinshine.

Oz

@ozzy62 It will sound even better after about 200 - 300 hours. Enjoy!

Got my Pontus ll a couple of days ago and have left it on all the time. Each day it seems to get alittle better. Very happy with this DAC so far!

Congrats, @ozzy62 ​​@mr_m ! Don't forget to play Alice's Restaurant today. Cheers,

Spencer

Hey @ozzy62, you mentioned that you may be considering the Iris reclocker in this thread, so I thought you may be interested in a cool discovery a made in my Denafrips setup.

I'm running USB into a Hermes DDC, then to Pontus II DAC via I2S.  The really fascinating thing I ran into was the big improvement in sound quality when I upgraded the power cable on the Hermes.  I initially thought the power cable choice on the Hermes would have the least sonic impact of all components in my system, so I have been lazy about swapping it out with something better.  But, I found that going from a generic 16 AWG power cable to an Acoustic Zen Krakatoa cable (9 AWG, 6N Zero Crystal Copper + Silver) is an incredible improvement to imaging and focus, and to overall resolution.  I was really happy about that because the Krakatoa, although very sharp/acute in details, thins out the low end too much on my system when it's used on the Pontus II, as well as on other components.  But it's a fantastic match with the Hermes, fwiw to you.

@gladmo 

What are you using as a transport/streamer?

@ozzy62
Good question.  I've been comparing my laptop USB output to an unmodified Bluesound Node 2021 out via both coax and optical to the Hermes with Krakatoa PC (then I2S to Pontus II), and also connected directly to Pontus II via coax and optical.  All of those combinations for the Node sound pretty similar with a minor discernible edge when routing through the Hermes, but connecting the laptop to the Hermes with a cheap, thin USB cable is on another level.  Transients are much more defined.  I've been testing this with tracks that have very high pitch percussive sounds, such as triangles, chimes, and even the reverb itself that's been added to guitars/bass, synths, and sampled sound effects (a la Yosi Horikawa).  Laptop USB to Pontus II is quite nice too, but it's missing the various effects that really precise transients adds, IME.

Alvin says that I probably won’t notice a big difference with DDC since I am using a Lumin streamer. He says it is needed more when using a computer as a source. So if I do anything it would be to step up to the Venus II. But the Pontus sounds so good, I’m in no hurry to do that just yet.

BTW, are you using the Pontus in the NOS mode? Initially I thought NOS sounded better, but now that I’ve got a few hours on the Pontus, I prefer OS with the slow filter more often than not.

@ozzy62  yeah, OS with slow filter.  Detailed and natural sounding

i agree as well, os with slow filter best compromise

nos sound a little sloppy in comparison, os mode has enough musical 'density' 

Also a happy Pontus II owner here. Contemplating whether to get Hermes DDC! 😃

I'm also using OS with slow filter. Hearing pretty much what you guys noticed.

@gladmo, interesting you found the coax and optical sound similar. With my previous dac I was limited to optical. Still gonna try a coax to connect to my Node 2. Will see what happens. 

I have tried coax via RCA and BNC, USB, and AES/EBU and prefer the balanced input by a small margin. USB was a close second.

@kw6 You may have caught it in the discussion, but just like ozzy relayed from Alvin at Vinshine Audio, and corroborated by my experience, the Denafrips DDCs can be worth the price if you are using a USB connection from your source.  If you have a higher end source outputting a non-USB signal then I would reconsider the value you think it will add to the Pontus II.  In my case, laptop USB as source (soon to be a dedicated Microsoft Surface Pro 7 tablet with high quality USB cable) using the Hermes with a high quality power cable substantially outperforms the Node via coax/optical in dynamism, details, imaging, extension at both ends, and fullness/liveliness of presentation.  Node is going to find a new home.

Ok thanks gladmo. Read that the Raspberry I2S contraption out performs the Hermes. My other option is to get IFI Zen stream and use USB out. What do you think?

@kw6 I think the clock in the Hermes is the same oven controlled crystal oscillator (OCXO) that Denafrips puts in their Terminator II, which are much more accurate than the FEMTO clock in the Pontus II, as well as the TCXO clock in the more expensive Venus II.  I think I read that OCXO is around an order of magnitude or greater more temperature stable than TXCO.  You'd have to read up on the details of the different types, but a Raspberry Pi beating my Hermes+Pontus II setup in USB sound quality would surprise me.

The one thing I was stressing earlier in this discussion was my finding that the power cable quality/compatibility made a sizable difference in the sound quality of my Hermes, so that would not likely be part of the experiment you are referring to.

I also got the Hermes because of the various inputs... such as toslink optical for a TV.

If you use the IFI Zen streamer with USB out to a Pontus II, you'll be relying on the Pontus II's on-board FEMTO clock quality.  However, the IFI Zen streamer is much less expensive than a Hermes + a streamer/computer.