Denafrips Pontus II vs Venus II

@stevebohnii 

That cable's specs look excellent, and it's in a significantly higher price bracket compared to my Kimber I2S.  I've been on a tear lately with system upgrades, including an Acoustic Zen Absolute 110ohm AES/EBU into the Hermes, but I'll consider it.  I've got it on my list now, and thanks!

The Hermes reclocker advances my sound enough that I would never think of backtracking to a Pontus II alone. That combined with setting the Pontus II on OS with the slow filter gives me the detail I want.  NOS on Pontus II just sounds hazy to me.

 

Hi again Steve @stevebohnii

I'm using Kimber Kable HD29 0.5m. It's just barely long enough to go between levels on my audio rack. I haven't tried any others.  If you have any suggestions, let me know.

@ryder 

I use a AES/EBU from a Bricasti M5 streamer into a Denafrips Hermes, which outputs via I²S to a Pontus II.  Everything in the digital chain upstream from the streamer is powered by quiet linear power supplies and is also power filtered.  The level of detail and focus is still much greater than when bypassing the Hermes.

Check out the specs for all the Denafrips devices, and in particular the clock type. My guess is that my Hermes + Pontus II setup via I²S gets one closer to the Terminator II performance than a Venus II because of the OCXO clock in the Hermes.

@stevebohnii

I want to stay humble and precise, so I just did the old Hermes bypass test... again. I listened to the album "Harp Favorites" by Floraleda Sacchi on Qobuz to test the difference. I find harp recordings to be one of the best ways to test many aspects of sound, including attack, decay, and the whole freq range from very high down to low mid-range and sometimes upper bass. For soundstage, not so much though. Anyway, I re-confirmed that Pontus II by itself outputs a lesser degree of finesse, speed, dynamics, and decay refinement.

I bought the Bricasti M5 new. For a power cord on my Pontus II, I’m using the Acoustic Zen Krakatoa. It has fantastic top end detail, and very fast and thunderous deep bass. However, the mid-bass and mid-range are recessed. When I use an Acoustic Zen Absolute Copper interconnect between my pre and power amp, it totally fills in that freq range with a very pleasing fullness without sacrificing any details. Without having found that synergy, I would have abandoned the Krakatoa. But with it, I’m extremely pleased! None of the power cords on my Pontus II come anywhere as close to the sub-bass extension and speed as the Krakatoa, which is especially revealed by a Rythmik F12G subwoofer + Zavfino power cable.

Maybe this is a better I2S option for the price, as they explicitly state that it uses OCC silver conductors:

 

@ozzy62 I described my setup in detail in this discussion already, so you can check that out if you want. The gist is that I’m using a dedicated network endpoint to stream via UPnP from a smartphone as a dedicated device for my streaming app(s). So, not a PC. I’ve used both USB and AES/EBU to connect to my reclocker, and in both cases it is a non-trivial difference and actually a profound upgrade over not using the reclocker. Reclocked with I2S to DAC sounds like a much higher tier DAC is in play. I’ve repeated this test many times over the last 9 months or so, and I always get a definite result. Alvin is exceptionally honest and modest about gear configurations and the products he sells, but in my case, even though I’m NOT using a PC and USB, he’s still greatly underselling it. Hope that helps!

@stevebohnii For my Bricasti M5, I’m using a pretty expensive AES/EBU cable and it clearly outperforms the USB connection from the same streamer to the same reclocker. The USB cable I have isn’t in the same price range, but I don’t plan to go back to USB even with a different cable because I don't think even a top tier USB cable could best my current config.