New D/D Converters from Denafrips

[davide256]

Reviews don't seem to be out there for many of the Denafrips products. That's a damper on my willingness to purchase one unheard. In these

days of Covid isolation reviews are more important than ever. Would be nice to see reviews from Stereophile  @Kal Rubinson on the Denafrips DDC's to

understand if they have lifted the bar for USB, worth bypassing an existing DDC with.

[davide256]

9 hours ago, Koso said:

 

Hi Dave.

It's hard to expect a flood of reviews on the DDCs, especially if it's a DDC from China. Unfortunately, there are still many prejudices regarding audio products from China, although unbiased reviews of these products are appearing more and more in the Western media. Hans Beekhuyzen Youtube Channel, DarkoAudio or 6moons audio reviews, just to name a few. In addition, DDC is still not considered a full-fledged component, so those reviewers are focused more on DAC reviews. I am long time Stereophile subscriber, but I understand that we can't expect them to review everything we're interested in right now.

 

Back to Denafrips DDC. I have GAIA. Yes, I took a little risk when I bought GAIA, because I didn't have a chance to heard it in my home setup. But I already had another DDC - Matrix audio X-Spdif 2 (great little device for the money by the way) and I had learned that DDC in addition to USB-to Spdif & I2S signal conversion, as the main purpose, can also improve sound quality. X-Spdif 2 improved the sound quality in my setup only slightly, but Denafrips GAIA improved the sound quality very significantly. As if I have upgraded the digital signal source to very high end one. I don’t know any member of this forum (and other forums) who owns Gaia DDC and is not happy with it. I was so excited about the sound and build quality of Gaia, that I ordered a Venus II DAC and again I was absolutely satisfied with its sound quality (in my setup Venus II blew away twice as expensive DAC from Simaudio Moon).

 

I looked at your digital audio chain and, in my opinion, Denafrips DDC (most likely Hermes or Gaia) would help you to raise the sound quality bar of your setup considerably. I would bet on that.

 

I decided that I'll give an Iris a try with a Metrum Octave, if that works out then I'd feel comfortable buying a Pontus. What's really annoying me now with

 a Metrum  Octave/Schiit Eitr is massed strings don't sound right and with a Chord Mojo I get random off harmonics with woodwind choir.

 

 

[davide256]

The Iris arrived today. Hopefully it will be far better than the Schiit Eitr and the Chord Mojo USB implementations I have on hand. Will see

[davide256]

hmm, what's  immediately impressive is added grunt factor in the bass. Need to digest improvements for a while but even with an older DAC like the Metrum Octave I

the Iris is doing good things vs a Schiit Eitr DDC.

[davide256]

I gave the Iris a shot using coax/optical inputs on a Chord Mojo. There it didn't help much, the Mojo maintained its polished characteristic but didn't

"bloom" with more palpable  tone color as the Metrum Octave has. Just tells me that the Mojo is optimized already to its limits with its own USB

input. Definitely preferring the sound combination of Iris + Octave I over the Mojo which is a reversal from when the Eitr was my available DDC.

[davide256]

At this point I’m pretty happy with the Iris. It has had an effect similar to buying up in a turntable: bass octaves go deeper, impact is greater. Percussion transients are cleaner, tight and dynamic. Piano notes attack is harmonically spot on and sharp. Sadly my massed string issue still remains but I’m convinced now that that problem likely is a limitation of the server USB out hardware, will be experimenting in the future with better USB out hardware

[davide256]

In the FWIW column, I found that with a Chord Mojo, up-sampling USB out  to 705/768k helped smooth out edginess with treble. While the DAC I'm currently

using only supports 192k I'm getting the same benefit using USB to the Iris at 706/768K rates, the Iris converts them down to 192/176 for coax/toslink out to DAC.

[davide256]

A new Iris review today

 

https://www.audiophilia.com/reviews/2021/3/26/denafrips-iris-usb-digital-to-digital-converter

[davide256]

Noticed today in Euphony that it reported the USB input on Iris supported 1411 and 1536. Up sampled to 1411, worked fine, but the Iris doesn’t have a speed light to confirm. The 1536 didn’t work well, mixture of noise and music

[davide256]

1 hour ago, Cortes said:

 

I compared half a year ago a Mutec MC3+usb with a Gustard U16 with a cheap DAC (SML SU-8 v2), headphones SR007mkII and amp Stax SRM 727mkII. All feed through a vaio Z laptop, I used different combinations of BNC cables (cheap from Amazon), expensive Toslink (Wireworld), expensive AES (Wireworld) and couple of USB cables (generic and accoustic revive). Basically I found no meaningful difference, I was not able to distinguish the Gustard from the Mutec. 

 

 

 

pretty much the vinyl equivalent of using a BIC turntable for source. Remember that this site was originally Computer Audiophile.... many of us have been on the journey for a while trying to do better than the low bar of off the shelf laptop/PC gear

[davide256]

Decided to dip my toes deeper in the Denafrips waters with an Ares II, will try to be patient and just use it for at least a week before adding the Iris DDC back in.

 

Had been using Iris with Chord Mojo, even limited to 192/DSD64 over SPDIF  it made the Mojo sound far better than same content over its USB input.

 

 

[davide256]

Patience didn't last long....the Ares II is really nice, full bodied, detailed, good DAC section but the USB input on it sounds reticent in the treble, a bit soft/blurry

on transients. Adding the Iris DDC in is well worth the added cost if USB is your primary source, improves dynamics, transient clarity. Hard to put my finger

on why but the Ares II USB input sounded a bit euphonic on its own, with the Iris timbre of instruments sounds more natural.

[davide256]

47 minutes ago, MarkusBarkus said:

I am chiming in on this thread because, IMO, the Denefrips Gaia can add value not only to Denefrips dacs, but other workflows/ dacs as well, and at various levels of performance/cost.
 

May as well get this out of the way: I stream and pass digital files from a Taiko Extreme, to a Chord Dave on an SJ DC4 power supply. Point being, it is already a resolving system for a digital workflow.

 

But, I want to by-pass the Dave's Amanero USB processing which I feel is not pulling its weight in the system. I tried one of the SRC converter boxes for dual BNC flow into Dave and HMS. *I don't like it.*
 

In my view, I prefer the Omega USB into the Gaia, and single SPDIF workflow into the Dave or the MScaler (this is an on-going test) over dual SPDIF via the SRC-DX box. NB: with the HMS I have Wave dual BNCs into Dave via the HMS.
 

I recognize this goes against the grain and the opinions largely held by others in the community. 
 

That said, the Gaia provides a very clean signal into the Dave (or HMS) and the sound is really quite good. Excellent detail and energy. 
 

I should note, there is a short interruption of the signal as the dac is trying to lock on to the signal when switching between Rebdbood and hi-res files when using the MScaler. I do not hear this direct to Dave. The SRC box was much worse handling workflow via HMS.

 

I had the MScaler out of my system for about two months. I added the Gaia, and pathed direct to Dave for about two weeks. Sounds awesome.

 

I just a few days ago added the HMS back into the flow, and am evaluating the experience. My initial reaction is: the Gaia may well make the MScaler unneeded in *my* system. 

If Denefrips (or other) develops a quality dual SPDIF workflow, I will be head of the line to try it with PGGB and "ordinary" files into Dave or HMS, but until then, the Denefrips Gaia offers an excellent option, even for non-Denefrips dac owners. Highly recommended. 

Mmm, sold  my IRIS because it won’t output 768 and that became important to me after I had bought it. Would be nice to see them make a FEMTO clocked DDC that was an alternative to the SRC-DX approach