I have the Venus II and a Hermes combination. I use the Tubulus Argentus I2s between them. I cannot comment on the comparison between then Pontus II and Venus II as I have never compared them. I have removed the Hermes from the system when doing some troubleshooting that later revealed a problem in my preamp which is in for repair now. When I removed the Hermes I found that the soundstage shrunk a bit and the bass was less defined with less authority. It was good to find that the Hermes was helping it along. I believe this combination is doing a great job and my musical enjoyment is relished each time I listen. I have read that you get amore detail retrieval from the Venus II vs the Pontus II in reviews i have read. It's build is more similar to the Terminator with the better resisters and more of them which helps it's detail more I think. These DAC's do take a tremendous amount of patience to break in and just keep getting better as the hundreds of hours pile up. Good luck with your decision, I always get the best I can afford to keep from wanting to upgrade and lose on my investments when ever I can.
