Article: Review | Taking The Denafrips Terminator To 11

[bbosler]

I am using a Mac Mini M1 as Roon server with HQPlayer and  agree that using HQplayer to upsample while running the Terminator ( a Terminator plus in this case) in NOS mode is the way to go. I am also using a Denafrips Hermes DDC to convert USB to I2S.  To my ear, that outperforms USB direct to the Terminator even though the Hermes is limited to 1/2 the maximum rate of the Terminator USB input. The M1 easily does DSD 512 but haven't tried 1024.  I assume at some point they will offer a DDC that will do USB to the higher rates as the I2S input on the Terminator will accept it.

 

I was using a pretty powerful computer as an HQPlayer NAA with USB to DDC with JCAT USB and ethernet cards, external linear DC supply , etc, connected to the Mini with 2 Cisco 2960 switches using the optical SFP outputs, but I couldn't hear any benefit over connecting the Mini USB direct to the DDC so that's how I'm currently set up. I realize that at this level the options for getting your digital files from a server  to the DAC along with the options for processing those files before sending them start to become too numerous to explore them all in a reasonable amount of time, but that's my experience. I highly recommend adding the Hermes into the mix for conversion to I2S. 

 

Even though they have a more expensive DDC, Alvin advised that for this purpose the Hermes was the equivalent of the more expensive Gaia. In both cases you feed the clocks from the Terminator to clock the DDC. 

 

 

[bbosler]

Chris, I see your PCM settings, what settings are you using in HQP for DSD upsampling?

[bbosler]

 

11 hours ago, cjf said:

Mother of God. The asking price of those Wilson footers take my breath away.

 

I usually dismiss comments having to do with the price of things, but as a practical matter  with a limited budget, when the price of feet approaches 50% of the cost of the component sitting on them it is impossible not to consider a cost-benefit analysis. That's one of the reasons we read these reviews. To get a sense of whether or not we might want to try something like this . So after reading 3 full paragraphs about how the stock feet were probably inadequate , the science behind the Wilson feet, and how these expensive feet might be better concluding with

 

Quote

 

With three Pedestals in place, the Terminator was setup for success and I was off to the musical races.

 

 

 

 

I was surprised that there wasn't a single comment about how they affected the performance of the DAC. I rarely criticize a review since I realize a review can't be all things to all people, but after such a build up I don't think it unreasonable to expect at least one comment about how  they perform. Some idea of what benefits one might expect if they took the plunge to put $2,200 feet under a $4,500 DAC.