Denafrips Venus II vs other similarly priced dacs

[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'.

[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.

[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.)

[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."