Received my Denafrips Venus 15th

Venus 15th owner here.  Definitely upgrade the Wiim Streamer; I saw big improvement upgrading to Auralic Aries S1 over the Wiim Ultra.  Also, using the lowest model DDC from Denafrips (Iris) or Musician (Pisces II) slaved to the Venus 15ths DAC and outputting I2S (HDMI or RJ45) will provide big improvement in sound at low cost (no need to get higher DDC models as their better clocks will not be used when slaving the DDC to the OCXO in the Venus 15th).  Same thing applies if you got the cheapest Denafrips streamer (Arce); no need for the more expensive Arcas (nor a DDC if you get the Denafrips streamer); just slave the Arce to the Venus 15th clock (use the correct setting and i2s pinouts as described by others earlier and in Vinshine's video for other Denafrips DACs).

@fthompson251 True, that is definitely a reason to at least upgrade to the Hermes if you have that need (the Gaia does not offer anything more in that regard).  My Auralic Aries S1 gives me those same extra inputs. If I had not gotten the Musician Pisces first, the Auralic Aries S1 would have been able to serve as a high quality streamer, galvanic isolator, and a reclocker for all those sources (albeit no I2S output). It is able to reclock, resample, and isolate allow of those sources just like a DDC. I think just pairing the Aries S1 to any Denafrips DAC is a great match for only $2000 (without the extra Auralic linear power supply which is $1000 extra).  The I2S from my Pisces sounds great, but I tested Aries straight to Venus from its USB without the Pisces in the middle, and it also sounds just as good.  Just another option for those who don’t want to buy both a new streamer and a new DDC at a higher cost.

If additional inputs are needed and you don’t need a new streamer or you just want to have a DDC for the I2S output (and you don’t care to slave the DDC to the Venus), I would get the Laiv uDDC at a lower cost of $849 vs $1299 for the Hermes.  The uDDC has a good clock (not as good as the Venus, but likely not a huge sonic penalty), and also offers an I2S input.  It, however, only has I2S output.

@vthokie83 Really great point about the rapidly changing USB tech in recent years, and I agree that listening with your own ears should be the final deTerminator  with a DDC like with everything else in audio.  I always thought that a decent DDC would likely improve sound (and at worst do nothing).  I have a few DDCs, and with most streamers I have had, there is definitely an improvement with adding a DDC to the chain and going I2S out to a I2S capable DAC.  However, two instances where I favor no DDC over having a DDC is with my now years old dedicated PC streamer with a JCAT Femto USB Card powered by a Keces P8 LPS (not sure if this JCAT card just has a really good USB implementation) and my Topping D90III Discrete DAC (USB always sounds better than I2S no matter what DDC I have tried with it).  Also, from my experience, DDCs have really made a big difference when they have a master clock input and I am able to sync my entire chain with the same external master clock (though this is not really something that can be done with the Denafrips and Musician DDCs as they don't have 10 MHz master clock inputs and only have dual 45 and 49 kHz word clock inputs).  I know its only with my ears (n = 1) and applicable to just the 4 streamers I have tested (Wiim Ultra, Eversolo DMP-A6 Gen 2, Fiio SR11, and Auralic Aries S1), but I have noticed that using a Musician Pisces slaved to the Venus 15th DAC's OCXO clock and going I2S into the Venus results in an improvement for all of them.

@ejspain2020 If it sounds better, it would not be because of the clock in the Iris, which is worse than the Venus’ clock from a technical standpoint.  If you are hearing benefits with the Iris without slaving it to the Venus’ clock (which would involve using the 2 clock out BNC ports on the Venus connected by 2 BNC cables to the 2 respective clock in BNC ports on the Iris), then it is because you are experiencing the other benefits of the DDC other than better reclocking (ie. galvanic isolation, etc. as explained by @vthokie83 previously).  This, in turn, likely means that the USB signal coming out of whatever streamer you’re using into the Iris is likely poorly implemented.  The only input on the Venus that would use the Venus’ very good OCXO clock (which is arguably the biggest upgrade from the Pontus to the Venus 15th and one of the biggest reasons as to why you would have paid extra over the Pontus for the Venus) is the Venus’ USB input because it is the only asynchronous input.  Every other input uses the clock of the upstream device it is coming from.  However, it could also be argued that you are not really hearing an improvement because 1) the isolation in the Iris is not really better than the isolation offered by the Venus’ USB input, and 2) I2S input in and of itself is not better than the USB input on Denafrips’ Venus and Terminator, as Denafrips themselves recommend using the USB input for these higher model DACs (because they say the isolation and clock is much better in these DAC models than any of their DDCs). Honestly, there is no reason to use any of the DDCs by Denafrips or Musician with the Venus from a purely SONIC perspective if you are not going to slave it to your Venus (you would be downgrading your clock - or at least not upgrading the clock in any meaningful way if you don’t buy what Denafrips claims, using a synchronous I2S signal that is more prone to interference with HDMI or RJ45 cable runs longer than 1-1.5ish meters compared to USB cable runs, etc.).  If you need more inputs, then the Hermes and Gaia would offer that (though that is a good chunk of change to spend for input switching when there are some cheaper DDCs that allow you to do that, especially if you are not slaving your DDC to the Venus anyway).  Even if the OCXO clocks in the two higher end Denafrips DDC models are exactly the same as the single OCXO clock that is in the Venus (not sure if this is the case or not, but like @vthokie83 stated with USB, clock implementation is just as important as the clock itself), I think it would still be beneficial to slave them to the Venus DAC’s clock because then both devices would be in sync using the same clock.  If you want to see if you should keep the Iris or not, you should 1) use your new streamer if you are going to upgrade your streamer, and 2) slave the Iris to the Venus’ clock with 2 quality BNC interconnects (I think it should be 50 ohm BNC cables for this connection, but I would double check).  Then listen and see if you hear a difference between your streamer’s USB out going directly into the Venus’ USB in VERSUS your streamer’s USB out going into the Iris’ USB in and then the Iris’ I2S out (HDMI or RJ45) into the Venus’ I2s in.

@ejspain2020 Also, there is a little more to the correct I2S setting than just not hearing static/noise.  You should make sure 1) the left and right channels are correct (just use a left/right channel test track on whatever streaming service you use or even youtube), 2) make sure the setting you select works with BOTH PCM and DSD (there is also a DSD left/right setting that is separate from the I2S setting), and 3) make sure the signal is in correct phase (this one is hard to tell even with a phase test track in my experience).