Denefrips Pontus "burn in" period?

When I first fired it up I wasn't blown away, matter of fact it sounded kind of congested and stiff, bright, etc. I thought I heard some improvement recently like it was kind of starting to relax, but went ahead and compared to the other dacs and its not as improved as you would expect it to be, even though it hasn't been the "ten days". I just sat there changing inputs back and forth, not noticing a very noticeable change. Very little. I mean, my Pro-ject was a $350 dac, and this Pontus is $1700, with SO MUCH PRAISE, I'm having a WTF moment right now. I'm crossing my fingers hoping this thing starts sounding "more analog" like everyone is saying...I threw on my Rega P2 with Dyna 20X2 cart and started thinking maybe I should have bought more records...LOL. It's not like my analog rig is THAT fancy you would think this DAC would hold its own...IDK. 

@oldhvymec noted on the use of burn/break. 

All right fellas I unplugged the thing for the night, will continue to break in / power down for another week and check back here. I'm not completely giving up on this thing yet. 

@jjss49 sorry forgot to mention speakers! Running Tannoy XT8F’s

I would hope to think that my system, while not super high end, would be resolving enough to hear a very noticable difference between a $350 dac and a $1700 dac! I do hear a slight difference, the Pontus is perhaps a LITTLE clearer. But not by much. I'll just give it more time.....

@jetter FYI running Canare 4S11 speaker cables. I ordered power cord from Signal for the dac but the connector didn't have the tightest fit, so ordered another video reference PC with tighter connector, awaiting arrival. I'm thinking it may be too early to call it not functioning properly, going to give it another week or so and see what happens.

@arafiq I have the latest node. In my head I'm thinking the node may not be the best streamer out there but it should do a decent enough job to where I should tell a difference between a budget dac and a higher end dac? I guess we shall see!

@chorus Now when orders back up could the 100 hours turn out to be 5 hours?

You may be on to something there.... I did think about that at one point which is why I'm going to give it some more time​​​​​​

@chayro  "a more realistic presentation of acoustic instruments and a better sense of space. Just sounds more "real". "

EXACTLY what In want! Also my system tends to be on the bright side of the spectrum, would like to get my digital to sound a little more sweet like my analog.

@arafiq currently feeding the Pontus with a coax cable from blue jean cables. Haven't tried USB,  My limited research seems to suggest that most people prefer coax to USB. Could be wrong, willing to try something different

@jjss49 wow! So I guess I should try out the other outputs on the node! Was this confirmed for the latest node?

@mr_m I'm running Qobuz, but I'm going to play with the optical cable next to see how it compares to USB.

@jjss49 DUDE. You nailed it! I switched out the coax for a crappy USB cable  I had laying around, from the node straight to the dac and BOOM...deeper soundstage, more defined,  more balanced chill sound...whoa. 

Remember I said I was switching back and forth from my analog rig to the new dac, and my analog sounded a lot sweeter. Wasn't even close. Now it's close! Song for my father by Horace silver sounded way better on vinyl before, now it's pretty darn close. What the hell! Still have to play around with the optical....

@arafiq That's right you did mention that. which kind of sucks because I really like  the BluOS interface! To be honest with you, it's already sounding better so I'm going to sit on this setup for a little while and see how it continues to develop. It's funny I never heard of this node /coax issue with the denefrips until now, and I did a lot of research...

@mazian how did you have your CD player hooked up to the Pontus?

@fuzztone thanks for the tip, I searched it and everything for sales coming up in British pounds...ha. know any USA dealers?

@mrdon wasn't looking for validation, was looking for some kind of explanation on why my super high quality deck wasn't sounding that impressive rolling up on day 10. I couldn't get the thing to sound that much different than my project dac or even the internal blue sound node dac. Just wasn't adding up. The major development today was switching out the coax cable for a USB, straight from the blue sound into the Pontus. Huge difference. I can't tell you why, but it's there. More volume, larger sounds stage, deeper, cleaner, less glare etc. This new development has me feeling positive although it's still kind of bugs me that the coax is doing this. Is it a issue with the Pontus? Issue with the blue sound? 

*break in 🤣

@arafiq I have the new node, and the USB most certainly made a difference. The toslink I had laying around, which was a 3 ft radio shack cheapy, like you said sounded possibly marginally better but not anywhere near the USB. Trying to figure out if this is a weakness of the node or the Pontus itself. Judging by what you're saying most likely it's the blue sound, I have no doubts that the Pontus is a well-built quality piece of gear. 

The coax cable is 2 ft long Canare by blue jean cables.

@mr_m exactly. Is this a weakness of the node, the pontus, random, that's what I'm trying to figure out. I've sent out an email to Vinshine. It would be nice to know what this means for my streamer going forward, do I have to move it to my b system and upgrade it or should I be content with just using a USB. Do I have a faulty unit? Did it not burn in long enough?

So its been a handful of days, more "break in" happening, and a couple emails with Alvin @ Vinshine. He was kind enough to answer my questions rather quickly, I can only imagine how many emails this man has to answer from noobs like myself, god bless him. 

So here's my understanding:

The Bluesound Node ( I have the latest version with USB connection) might have something funky going on with the coax and Toslink outs that just doesn't jive with the Pontus Dac (maybe other denefrips dacs, too) The Pontus just cant make the info it is receiving from coax and Toslink outs on the Node sound as good compared to when it is receiving from the USB out, like it can't correct the information properly. "If the signal that's feeding into the DAC is of poor quality, the DENAFRIPS DAC can't correct the information". I went back and forth and the difference is NOT subtle. Since "the USB, on the other hand, is asynchronous, the data retrieval is based on the clock of the DAC" , the Pontus now takes full control of re-clocking and correcting the info on its own, producing a superior sound quality.  That is the answer.

So in my estimation, if you are using a bluesound Node to feed a denfrips dac, unless you are using the USB OUT on the newer version, you are NOT getting the full potential out of this pairing. Obviously, there are better streamers that will produce better results, but if you are using a node, make sure its the new one with the USB, or strongly consider upgrading. That's just my $.02.

Since making the change to USB, I am now very happy with the improved sound as compared to my other Dacs.

Hope this helps. Thank everyone for your advice!

@sudnh thanks for pointing this out, I moved my project DAC to my living room system, so it's still very much in use paired up with some old Dynaco amps. I looked it up, price seems pretty reasonable if it works really good. I wonder if this would work or improve on the Bluesound node that I'm using as a streamer only?