Solo streamer

@audphile1 

Good luck with your pursuit. I am about to complete my year long quest on analog setup…should have my TT up n running by end of the month. 

Thanks @lalitk !

Wishing you the same!

"Reality only exists because we invented Time"...Oppenheimer 

So, thanks 

jazzman7 for sending me down a Tech rabbit hole of "clocks" for 3/4th of my day... lol.  

   Back in the good ole Air Force pre-GPS, analogue days (1970's for me) we always did a Time Hack during any mission brief with multiple airships to insure coordinated actions...easy!  The transition to digital requires a lot more brain power.

   Denafrips has been notorious for not being fully transparent with their signal processing, eg "real NOS"... ref GoldenSound reviews.  I'm totally guessing here but it seems on the Pontus II, their PCM FPGA module acts on all? incoming signals.... that could allow a synchrous slaved DAC clock to accept I2s data which is then stored and buffered, resampled?,... then re-clocked with the DAC clock and sent to analogue out.

   As a side issue, I was unaware of,  but thoroughly explored by Amir at ASR is HDMI (I2s) is a poor audio source connection, cause it just sticks audio in the spare video spaces of the synchronous stream, and is very susceptible to jitter.  He goes on to show async USB can have very well controlled jitter and low noise flour= better. Hmm, maybe, yrmv.  

   I do notice a slight improvement in sound from my OPPO 83 playing a cd/sacd if the "pure audio" button is used...it shuts down most video processing.  Maybe that lowers the noise floor and shifts the OPPO clocks from video sync to the OPPO DAC clocks?  Regardless of which clock is in-play,  I2s does sound better than any USB or SPDIF source...    

   My ears still LOVE the Pontus II (with the 3rd FPGA firmware upgrade) however it works!

OPPO 83, Pontus II, Holo Bliss KTE amp, Susvara HPs   

As a side issue, I was unaware of,  but thoroughly explored by Amir at ASR is HDMI (I2s) is a poor audio source connection, cause it just sticks audio in the spare video spaces of the synchronous stream, and is very susceptible to jitter. 

From what I have observed over the years, the key to good sound in one's own system is to do exactly the opposite of what Amir recommends. 

@old_ears 

Your welcome  

Glad to be of service.

On a more serious note. The advantage of I2S via HDMI is that the clock signal and the data are maintained in separate lanes within the same cable, and that I2S speaks more directly to what is native to the DAC (i.e. less conversion required).

By contrast, with AES or digital Coax the clock signal and data are multiplexed, and more translation is required on the DAC end.

That being said, so much is system dependent. What is your DAC best optimized for, and how best does it play with the source. And quality of the cables and system synergy are also very important pieces of the puzzle.