Denafrips Pontus II vs Chord Qutest impressions (as well as the Denafrips Ares II)

[ecwl]

I just noticed @Calvin & Hobbes and @OldBigEars both use Cat 8 Ethernet Cables which I believe are shielded. At least with my experience from Chord DACs, the Cat 8 shielding (or any shielded Ethernet cables) tends to leak RF noise into the Chord DACs and affect its performance. I think this phenomenon affects other DACs too but can sometimes make dull sounding DACs more exciting.

 

That said, @Calvin & Hobbes is one of many who prefers R2R DACs to Chord. I think it’s mostly a preference thing depending on type of music people listen to and system synergy. Ultimately, what sounds good in your system is what’s good.

[ecwl]

33 minutes ago, OldBigEars said:

I need to update my signature but I recently upgraded my microRendu 1.4 to the opticalRendu.

But anyway the outcome has been a sonic improvement way beyond my expectation.

Yes. I have found it’s very difficult to completely eliminate these types of noise from entering DACs. So for Chord DACs, because the jitter immunity mechanism is different than other DACs, I find the reference sound per the designer is to simply feed it Toslink despite the high source jitter. OpticalRendu is another fantastic way to achieve this too.