DAC diminishing returns

To clear up some incorrect information......Denafrips products are sold by an amazing distributor in Vinshine Audio and it's owner Alvin Chee, I've communicated with him many times (as I've bought several Denafrips products), I have never had such amazing response and attention as I've received from them.....emails returned in hours, unless overnight in Singapore.

Their products have a 3 year fully transferrable warranty, and the USA based service center for Denafrips products is TekSystems in Buda, TX

Test drove a few DACs over the last 3 months (Audiolab M-DAC, Chord Qutest, Denafrips Pontus II - on loan from a friend).....and heard the HoloAudio Spring 3 Level 2 that a friend owns. To my ears the Denafrips and HoloAudio R2R dacs were the best overall sounders, and I chose the Denafrips Pontus II over the Spring 3.....mostly because I got to demo it in my system. Chord had some amazing skills, but was too fatiguing to my ears....too much detail?

I have also used a Onkyo C-7030 and Audiolab 6000 CDT CD transports with the Pontus and have had zero issues

Dsfreeh,

I wondered the same when looking for a DAC for my system, and in my research, I had decided to go with an FPGA or R2R Dac instead of a DAC chip based model.....would a $1,000ish DAC like the Denafrips Aries II R2R at $820 be sufficient, or should I move up the ladder to the likes of the Chord Qutest FPGA $2,000ish, Denafrips Pontus II R2R at $1,750, or HoloAudio Spring 3 Level 2 at $2,400 be worth it.

In MY system, the Denafrips Pontus II R2R DAC sounded best....though I can also say that the Chord Qutest and HoloAudio Spring 3 are both phenominal DACs......just not in my system.