Denafrips Venus II vs other similarly priced dacs

[jomsjoms]

I am highly considering a Denafrips Venus II due to the reviews ive been reading/hearing. I love the sweet analog sound of tube amplifiers which they say is much like the denafrips r2r dacs.

 

Anyway, I just finished buying my home theater gear and I will soon (in a couple of months) start looking into setting up my stereo system. My bedroom is only small at 18sqm (1500cuft) and I will be using a pair of B&W 805d3 as my speakers. I have no amp yet (for stereo) since im still in research mode but i am leaning towards the primaluna evo amps. My source will only be 100% Tidal and Qobuz. I also have no streamer yet and im looking into the node 2i, lumin u1 mini or OptcialRendu. 

 

With that said, is Denafrips Venus II a good DAC for me or is there an alternative in the same price range which would be a better fit? I listen mostly to jazz, classical, soft relaxing music, etc. I don't listen to loud music, electric, party, bass heavy music. 

 

note: I am from the Philippines and we don't have much choices here so i can't really "test them out" and thus i will be buying blind. 

 

Thanks. 

[creativepart]

In similar price range the Chord Qutest is a great choice and even cheaper is the RME ADI-2 DAC which gets great reviews. There is also the Schiit Gungnir Multibit which is a logical choice as well.

 

Also, as an FYI 18 square meters is ~194 square feet. A room if it was square shaped would be 14' X 14'.

[jomsjoms]

creativepart - thanks for your recommendations. Yeah my room (bedroom) is rather small and its 15feet x 13feet. I will look into chord/schiit/rme but as per my readings, it seems that R2R or tube dacs might suite me better as i often listen to jazz, classical, soft music and never listen to fast, dynamic, electronic music. 

 

 

[creativepart]

I listen to Jazz 70% of the time and while I have about 400 40-year old rock records I wouldn't call of them overly fast or electronic. I listen to vinyl about 40% of the time and stream Qobuz the rest of the time. I have the Qutest and it's a very good sounding dac that's certainly more analog sounding.

 

My amp is the ALL TUBE Rogue Cronus Magnum II and my speakers are Harbeth P3ESRs. So, everything in my system is optimized for that full, warm sound. (Vinyl components are Rega P8, Ortofon Cadenza Black and PS Audio Stellar Phono.)

 

The three DAC I suggested would all be on the more analog side of listening and not Sigma Delta Converter dacs. These three would be direct competitors to the Venus in similar price ranges. And, while a different kind of R2R Dac, the Schiit Gungnir Multibit is a non-oversampling ladder Dac.

[jomsjoms]

Oh thanks, i didnt know that the 3x you mentioned are R2R dacs as well. I thought they were sigma delta dacs. Thanks for the headsup!

 

[creativepart]

No, not all three. None of them are standard chip based Delta Sigma Dacs. The Chord uses  FPGA chips (Field Programmable Gate Array) with custom software designed by Rob Watts for Chord. The RME is a chip dac but uses AKM's AK4493 DAC chip. The Schiit is a ladder dac like R2R but uses four non-audio industry Analog Devices AD5781BRUZ digital to analog converters to create the non-oversampling multibit processing that works like individual resisters but in chip form. (Hope I got that right.)

[davide256]

7 hours ago, creativepart said:

In similar price range the Chord Qutest is a great choice and even cheaper is the RME ADI-2 DAC which gets great reviews. There is also the Schiit Gungnir Multibit which is a logical choice as well.

 

Also, as an FYI 18 square meters is ~194 square feet. A room if it was square shaped would be 14' X 14'.

The Qutest is the best of the three, the other two aren't close. George thinks the Pontus is better than the  Hugo2 which some like better than Qutest, even though it differs only by the headphone amplifier section and I/O jacks. So if the OP can afford the Venus sounds like he has already chosen better than any of these.

 

 

[Acholate]

Check this out if you like tube sound.

The reviewer did give the reward to Pontus as well.

But he think Doge 7 is the best DAC he ever heard, even prefer it more than Terminator plus.

 

 

[creativepart]

Especially in the age of YouTube there are a LOT of reviewers. They do serve a useful purpose but each of us need to be careful to not take the opinion of one person as a truth for all others. It's best to read everything, lots of reviews not just one.

 

I've found that it's not uncommon for a reviewer here and there to really rave about a newly released dac but move on to some other new holy grail a month or two down the road.

 

Certainly, the Denafrips Ares II product has seem some of this - it's great - it's the best - it's not that great - there's a new one that's better.

 

Also, there is no one best. In fact, there are probably half a dozen really excellent sounding DACs on the market in this price range right now. "You pays your money and you takes your chance."

[Blake]

1 hour ago, Acholate said:

 

But he think Doge 7 is the best DAC he ever heard, even prefer it more than Terminator plus.

 

 

Watch again, he didn't say that.    

[Acholate]

26 minutes ago, Blake said:

 

Watch again, he didn't say that.    

 

Hi Blake,

 

Yes, he didn't say in the video but I'm his Patreon member. 

He said in Patreon that he prefer Doge 7 over Terminator/TP, but it's just his preference because he like holographic 3D from tube.

 

[Blake]

Gotcha.  I was thinking I missed something there or in the comments below the video.

[jomsjoms]

Wow, he really said that he wanted it over the Terminator+ ? That's a big leap he did there. Doge 7 doesn't have that much reviews though unlike denafrips.... hmmmmm

[gmgraves]

On 12/17/2020 at 10:12 PM, davide256 said:

The Qutest is the best of the three, the other two aren't close. George thinks the Pontus is better than the  Hugo2 which some like better than Qutest, even though it differs only by the headphone amplifier section and I/O jacks. So if the OP can afford the Venus sounds like he has already chosen better than any of these.

 

 

I had both a Qutest and a Hugo 2 here side by side. One of the biggest surprises of my audio hobby was that even though except for the Hugo 2’s headphone amp, the DAC portion of the two units are IDENTICAL. The Qutest did not sound anywhere near as good as the Hugo 2! I do not know how to explain that, unless the difference was down to power supply differences.

[Acholate]

9 hours ago, jomsjoms said:

Wow, he really said that he wanted it over the Terminator+ ? That's a big leap he did there. Doge 7 doesn't have that much reviews though unlike denafrips.... hmmmmm

 

In fact, he think it's best DAC he come across regard any price point.

I shouldn't say more than this because it's only for his Patreon.

If you want to know exactly what he said, you need to pay $5 and see his comment under gear tier & recommendation list.

[Cortes]

Take a serious look at the Audiobyte Hydra VOX/ZAP, which is  cutting edge technology from the guy of Rockna.

[misterspense]

6 hours ago, Acholate said:

 

In fact, he think it's best DAC he come across regard any price point.

I shouldn't say more than this because it's only for his Patreon.

If you want to know exactly what he said, you need to pay $5 and see his comment under gear tier & recommendation list.

This same reviewer once reviewed two speakers, one obviously a coaxial design from Elac, and some other pair of speakers, obviously a traditional two way. He called them also coaxial. Since then I take everything he says with a grain of salt. Just my two pennies.

[m.i.c.k.e.y]

As previous poster had said Audiobyte Hydra VOX/ZAP has my vote too. Over budget yes. But packs a punch in respect for its size and has an HP out. Sister company of Rockna. Some users prefers it to the Termi. And since its FPGA based, future upgrades are only thru FW.

[jomsjoms]

Anyone here has listened to both the Denafrips Dac and the Doge 7? Im interested on his inputs on both these dacs. 

[CJH]

Holo Audio Spring 2 Level 1. 

Note: I have no personal experience with this DAC.

CJH