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Denafrips Terminator vs other dacs

Hey everyone I have owned the denafrips Terminator in my system for approximately one year and am enjoying it. However I have not compared it to many other Dacs. the only one really being the Burson conductor SL 9018 and the hdv 820 and both of these were with headphones not speakers.
Initially when I was buying I was looking to spend around 4,000 and was deciding between the PS audio directstream and the Terminator and after lots of reading eventually settled on The Terminator.

So in this thread my aim is to get all the people who've either owned the Terminator or heard it to chime in on there impressions of it specifically compared to other dacs. Some of the other dacs I'm thinking of are the chord Hugo 2, tt2, Dave. The bricasti M1 SE. PS direct stream. Metrum pavane. Holo spring l3. And any other dacs that you heard that you have compared to the Terminator.

I realize that there are other threads that discuss the Terminator but I have not seen any that focus on comparing it to other dacs which is what I want this thread to be focused on.
Thank you so much.
smodtactical

Showing 3 responses by georgehifi

georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
jriggy
the DS DAC has been said to be smoother (softer / rounded off transients) and the Termi having more ‘pop’ but that doesn’t equate the DS being more analog.

So true jr, the discrete R2R Multibit dacs like the Terminator the Holo, MSB, Total ect ect have a life and a boogie factor to the music that DS dacs lack, and yes they do show up bad recordings.
The good DS (delta sigma) dacs that aren’t hard or harsh, are a bit of a yawn, and lack bringing out the life (boogie factor) of the music, but in a good way are kinder to those bad recordings.

Cheers George
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
Holo spring l3
I had the Holo Spring Level 2 on loan in my system for 2 weeks and I was very taken with it, even in OS mode, but it was when it was switched to NOS mode that really got me listening, more extension and harmonic detail at both ends and richness to the mids in NOS mode.

Cheers George  
georgehifi's avatar
georgehifi
10,312 posts
 
smodtactical OP

The Denafrips come out trumps on this a/b video by Darko.
https://youtu.be/9tGmD6j8fC0

https://darko.audio/2018/09/a-short-film-about-the-denafrips-terminator-dac/

Cheers George
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