dacs that I have had in my system - a listing

i used the ank 4.1 le with stock tube set, i was surprised by its quite energetic presentation, with an open somewhat forward treble... resolution was very good, on par with a denafrips pontus but not quite as a clean as a venus 2, to my ear, and the ank had a bit higher noise floor (rca outs vs xlr from denafrips) .. mids and midbass on all were magical though deep bass tunefulness is superior on the denafrips

@jjss49 thanks again for answering all my questions. It’s rare that someone has compared these DACs directly. Did you feel one outperformed the other sonically? Were there any areas where the ANK exceeded the performance of the Pontus/Venus? If you were to recommend one on its sonic performance alone, which would it be?

Did you feel one outperformed the other sonically?

Were there any areas where the ANK exceeded the performance of the Pontus/Venus?

If you were to recommend one on its sonic performance alone, which would it be?

on sonic performance alone i think the venus is superior overall to both the pontus and ank 4.1, by a slim margin

the pontus comparatively has greater midband warmth but this to my ear comes from a slightly recessed and smeared treble and a greater sense of fine grain in the mids you get with the pontus... you don’t hear this delta till you compare the two side by side

vs the ank the solid state output stages of the denafrips defines bass better, more solid, less overhang while the sense of imaging is equal (a real coup for the dena models, imo) as well providing a lower noise floor, and thus microdetail is a touch better - one can argue the ank gives more ’air’ around the bass notes (think audio research tube amp bass versus hegel solid state bass) but i prefer a more tight deep neutral bass presentation

once again the key caveat here is i did not get into rolling tubes in the ank, and with effort here, there may be more sonic upside to the ank unit than how i heard it

Can you give us some insight into the $3k and $4k field? I know this is subjective so two or three options under each will do. Thank you very much for your time.

So the notion that RME ADI-2 Pro is clean and German, and gets out of the way, and we don’t need (and shouldn't need) anything more from a DAC.. is it not true? :)

So the notion that RME ADI-2 Pro is clean and German, and gets out of the way, and we don’t need (and shouldn’t need) anything more from a DAC.. is it not true?

it depends, in my view

yes it is clean sounding, yes it is german made, but whether it totally ’gets out of the way’ is a rather subjective thing... for a very good system set up that capably extracts and renders spatial info from recordings, the rme in my experience is lacking... its soundstage is foreshortened and narrowed... one quick a/b versus say, a chord qutest, exposes this notable weakness of the rme 

this is why i feel the rme is ideal for headphone listeners, much more than those with good in-room setups that seek to recreate realistic imaging, layering and decay of notes