Digital Upgrade Recommendations


Looking to leverage the knowledge of the Audiogon experts for advice on how best to upgrade the performance of my digital front end to sound more like my vinyl rig.  Currently, I have a Roon Nucleus acting solely as a streamer feeding a Denafrips Pontus II via an Audioquest Diamond USB cable.  I’m looking to spend roughly $600 and the options as best as I can tell from scanning the forum are:

  1. Upgrade the stock SMPS on the Nucleus to a good LPS power supply
  2. Add an Etherregen and place it before or after the Nucleus
  3. Purchase the Iris DDC from Denafrips and go I2S to the Pontus II
  4. Other?

All suggestions and recommendations welcome!  

tom2441

Showing 2 responses by sonic79

I would first research what is the best digital input on the Pontus II. Some DAC's perform better with I2S, others with USB. This will determine the ideal device feeding the DAC. The last link in the chain before the DAC is the most vital; components further upstream can be isolated by streaming over a network–lessening their significance.

Owning a Roon Nucleus I assume you are using Roon? If the Nucleus is running Roon Core, it is not only playing the role of streamer but also the role of server. In this case I would suggest offloading the streamer/Roon endpoint duties to something like a Sonore ultraRendu or microRendu. Connect either of these devices to your router/switch/modem over ethernet, and as long as they are on the same network as the Nucleus you can use them as Roon endpoints. Then go USB into the DAC.

You can supplant ethernet with fiber optic for even better isolation, but cost and complexity increases.

@tom2441 Thanks for further describing your system. Having a dedicated server and streamer is a big factor, and you've already addressed that. In your case the Iris DDC could be beneficial, as currently you are running USB straight off the motherboard in the Nucleus.

The EtherREGEN is a switch so it serves a different purpose. It would be placed upstream of the Nucleus, while a DDC would be downstream. In your system the biggest bottleneck that can addressed for $600 is doing away with USB out of the Nucleus.