Denafrips R2R DAC (plays 512 DSD) reviewed as giant killer

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From the description it sounds like the Denafrips does DSD conversion similarly to how Miska's DSC-1 works, with a 32 bit element discrete FIR filter.  But it does not seem to say much else in detail, being Chinese it might be just a direct balanced version of Miska's design, but without further investigation, who knows, and what additional filter elements (passives) it might use is up for grabs as well.

I would be interested in seeing a much simpler, DSD only version of this, especially with an added volume control and discrete output buffer.

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23 minutes ago, Tintinabulum said:

Great so what sort of equipment did you use and how did it sound?

 

Better sound? Isn't that the point?

Apparently you have been fooled.  I suggest that you read the article on MQA at the home page of computer audiophile.com to gain some understanding of MQA.

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1 minute ago, Tintinabulum said:

 

Well my ears may have been fooled! At least I’ve listened. 

 

I’ve tried to read the comments about MQA but there too much hateful bile there obscuring the reasoned arguments. It’s like a pack of playground bullies, most of them without much to add and spoiling the discussion to a large extent.

 

I know you to be no fool but you don’t know that about me. I’ve read and listened and it isn’t sh*t, it’s music.

It is very difficult to the a valid comparison of MQA.  You need to be sure to have the original high res music file the MQA version was created from, otherwise you are just comparing different masterings, or (lossy) hi res vs CD.

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3 minutes ago, rickca said:

Wow, ML doesn't usually just dump on a product like that.  I guess he's not expecting any potential ad revenue from Denafrips.

Or the TotalDACs could just be that much better in comparison.  Both of these are discrete ladder DACs, but the TotalDACs do use much better resistors in their ladders.

After all, price differential is quite large as well.

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2 hours ago, Milt99 said:

According to the specs from each website:

Total DAC 300 resistors in the array.  0.01% VAR Bulk Metal® Foil resistors from Vishay Foil Resistors.

Denafrips 500 resistors in the array. 0.005% high precision, laser cut 10ppm low thermal effect precision resistors.

The number of resistors is per channel array.

 

I understand specmanship and all of that and no single spec tells the entire story.

The metal foil resistors in the TotalDAC are much better than the thin film resistors in the Denafrips, lower distortion, and lower noise.

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8 hours ago, firedog said:

The Terminator is supposed to have the second set of resistors acting as a correction for the distortion etc. The claim is that this enables them to use less expensive resistors w/out quality loss.

A second set of resistors could increase precision of the R value, acting as an error correction, but it could not lower noise and distortion caused by the resistors themselves.  Remember the actual signal that you hear is running through  those resistors, so the sound signature of the resistors themselves is going to be audible.

Most experienced folks I know consider the naked foil resistors which TotalDac uses to be the most transparent resistors available in the world. These resistors cost about $15 each in small quantities, probably around $10 each in the quantities which TotalDAC purchases.  BTW, TotalDAC uses multiple sets of resistors depending on which of their models you are talking about, I cannot remember how many sets in each model, but I am sure the "7" uses multiple sets.  Details are at their website.  Denafrips has more total resistors, but they have a separate DAC element for converting DSD right?  It requires a whole other set of resistors in addition to the PCM ladder converter.

I do not "know" if the resistors are the reason for the differences in sound reported, but since they are the main element of an R2R DAC it does seem likely.  I doubt that TotalDAC would use such costly parts if there was no advantage to doing so.

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@TubeLover, Please do not despair!  It is not advisable to base your purchasing decisions on a single review (not even a review, just a short listening session).  There are many reports of the Denafrips being an excellent DAC which performs way above its price point.  It is probably unreasonable to expect TotalDAC level performance from any DAC costing less than half as much, but that does not mean there is a problem with the Denafrips.

Any purchase like this should be tried in your system before committing to it.  Demand for the Denafrips seems pretty high right now, and I would advise you to go for it, and if it does not work out for you, sell it as nearly new, and save your money, and wait for a used TotalDAC to appear.

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@accwai, No TotalDAC is not overpriced.  You appear to have very little knowledge of parts quality and cost.  Anyway, you can prefer whatever you want, but posting misinformation on the Internet and attacking products with information which is in error is not good form.

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30 minutes ago, accwai said:

I'm so glad he's come to his senses and completely turn his back on the dark side

So Mr. Ebaen is spewing ridiculous audiophile babel, until he agrees with your position, hmmm.  I guess you must be the singular voice of all-knowingness of all things audiophile, you do realize that statements like this make you look like a fool, right?

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@alvin1118,  any plans for Denafrips to release a really simple, super high quality DAC using only the DSD decoder with the most precise resistors, and leaving out all PCM stuff?  For those who prefer DSD oversampled to 256 in software, a simpler DAC at a more affordable price could be all that is needed.

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15 minutes ago, firedog said:

You can get something like that from Lampizator, I think.

Lampi uses a different DSD converter approach.  I am asking for potential customers, personally I am in the process of building a DSC-2.6 from a PCB/module developed by Pavel Pogoda.  Just thinking that Denafrips has a nice approach with the rest of their build quality (power supplies, output stage), and simple DSD only version would allow those (who may not be DIY capable) to have a very high quality discrete DSD DAC for a very affordable price.

Holo audio does offer something like this as well...

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1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

slight OT...

 

barrows, do you have any thoughts on the D>A conversion that Accuphase uses in their high end CD players?

I know nothing about it?  Are they doing something interesting/different?  I would expect at least very good power supply implementation and output stages from Accuphase.

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On 7/16/2018 at 4:24 PM, Ralf11 said:

MDSD type D/A converter using eight parallel devices

That would likely be an ESS chip.  A single ESS 9038 chip has 8 parallel devices.

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3 minutes ago, giordy60 said:

does this mean that the R2R network also decodes the dsd?

No, there is a separate circuit (the "32 step FIR analogue filters") Which handles DSD conversion to analog.

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1 hour ago, Reggy said:

Just because a DAC is discrete doesn't necessarily mean it is going to yield a more accurate or true sound with that kind of "discrete" design approach concerning conversion natively, on the other hand a DAC offering both native DSD and native PCM, well that's very beneficial considering  the majority use PCM still for a good number of reasons over DSD. Why limit DSD to such a small audience in the audio market?

I am not sure what you are saying here?  All I am saying is that there are many folks interested in the sound of discrete conversion DSD DACs, such as Denafrips, Holo, PS audio, etc.  If you are interested I would suggest listening to some of these as they have some very good qualities.

With DSD we have an advantage that the actual D/A conversion process is fairly simple, so it can be done well with a handful of carefully chosen discrete components.  If you keep oversampling/filtering and other DSP out of the DAC box, you have an advantage of less processing (and its associated noise) mixed in the same chassis as the masterclock and analog circuitry.

 

The beauty of this set up is with Ethernet distributed computer audio we can oversample all files to DSD 4, or even 8 in some cases, and then send the DSD 4 data stream to the renderer/DAC in the audio system.  This way the DAC can be built just to perfectly handle DSD 4 (and up will be OK) and can be quite simple.

 

What makes this approach viable now is that there are plenty of software players which do a decent job with oversampling to DSD, with HQPlayer, Audirvana Plus, Daphile, and ROON all capable of good PCM-DSD conversions.

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50 minutes ago, Reggy said:

What I thought was you were in the market of building a DAC which doesn't support PCM only DSD so I was wondering what benefit that would in designing one oppose to some of the R2R DACs that support both native DSD and PCM.

 

I was thinking that yes, there would be a reason to produce a DSD only DAC, as it could be much simpler while still offering the best sound quality.  To do both DSD and PCM via discrete methods requires Denafrips to run two completely different converters, and then to be able to switch between them, additionally, they have proprietary oversampling happening onboard (probably in a fairly high power full chip).  A DSD only DAC could just contain the DSD converter section and no oversampling, just a single input (owner's choice of I2S or USB, to support DSD4/8).  There would not be  huge market, but one could offer tremendous value with this approach.  The fact that there are are few good software oversampling options makes this approach viable.

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1 hour ago, giordy60 said:

and I suppose (at least that Alvin tells us otherwise) that the signal dsd that accepts input does the same thing .... that is all at 768khz.

No, Alvin mentioned that the Ares decodes native DSD, 768 kHz would not be native DSD.  Like other Denafrips DACs the Ares has both an R2R ladder for PCM conversion and a separate, discrete, DSD conversion stage (likely a discrete FIR filter similar to Jussi's DSC design).  Now since Denafrips does not tell all one does not know if their oversampler also oversamples DSD, but because this DSC style conversion for works better with DSD 4 and DSD 8, it is likely that the Denafrips oversamples DSD to at least DSD 4.

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2 hours ago, Reggy said:

I don't know how you guys get to enjoy it with on the fly conversion but for me its a gimmick that suppose to sound better but in the end it makes no real world difference except for added CPU usage and fan noise. There's been plenty of papers on the PCM Vs. DSD. , in the end most people would justify that PCM sounds more immediate while DSD is more rounded in sound or soft.

I disagree, but it all depends on the DAC set up as well.  My computer running the oversampling is way off in my workroom isolated via Ethernet, where it does no harm to the audio system, and my DAC uses an ESS 9038 chip, which I feel sounds best when fed DSD 128 or higher.  This DAC is specially tuned to sound best with DSD 256, so that is how I run it.

How it sounds DSD vs. PCM is dependent on the oversampling, and there are a lot of choices here: suffice it to say, there are a number of different programs which allow for good conversions PCM-DSD on the fly.

Every DAC has a "sweet spot" of sample rate and type, but even better is if one can set up a DAC specifically just for one (high) sample rate one can optimize the set up even more.

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13 hours ago, coach65 said:

I'm curious, when you guys listen to music do you listen to the sound or the performance? 

I have two hats, one is when I am working and that hat has me listening to the system and how it sounds.

 

Of course that is work, and I prefer listening to music.  My goal in music listening is to get to that place where I hear music, and the system is forgotten.

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50 minutes ago, luisma said:

Alvin? good or bad news?

On a separate note someone asked about leaving the DAC ON all the time, how does that affects the life of the product? this is all digital I presume the consumption will be nothing and since there are no fans ... Can you provide some advice?

Most solid state gear will last a very long time when kept powered up 24/7.  The possible exception being class A amplifiers which run very hot (the heat can dry out electrolytic capacitors).

A DAC should be left on at all times for best performance, clocks require quite a bit of warm up to stabilize at their lowest noise level.  Indeed, many power up/down cycles put more stress on solid state components than leaving them on, as the inrush currents at power up are many times higher than at any other time.  Leave it powered dup all the time, except when away on vacation.