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Cen. Grand DSDAC 1.0 (vs Pontus II)

Hi guys, 

I made an enquiry with a distributer here in the UK, with a view to ordering the Pontus II. However, he's thrown me a curveball by recommending the Cen. Grand DSDAC 1.0 - another Chinese brand, making FPGA based DACs with PCM to DSD up sampling (from what I can make out). There isn't a lot out there on the interweb - reviews, sound character, presentation etc, much of anything really. 

The distributor claims, or suggests that to him the Cen. Grand is "better" than the Pontus II; I've asked him to qualify and elaborate on this, but in the meantime,  thought I'd ask here to see if anyone has direct experience of this brand/DAC. Just for reference/context, the Cen. Grand DSDAC 1.0 is the Standard version at £2500 (the distributer has offered me 10% discount, so £2250).

Thanks in advance 👍

128x128painter24

Showing 1 response by lordmelton

lordmelton's avatar
lordmelton
877 posts
 

Seems like a rip off of PS Audio's Direct Stream and now Direct Stream Mk II DAC.

The Cen Ultimate version of this DAC is $5.3k so not much reason to buy it when you can get trade ins off buying the PS Audio DAC, on any components.

PS Audio and Cen both upsample everything including PCM to DSD, personally I don't think upsampling is necessary with today's DACs. YMMV.

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