Denafrips ARES II USB R2R DAC Review

[ethanhallbeyer]

To verify that it's implemented correctly. How else would you do this other than by testing them.

after reviewing x number of DACs and having a handful that are verified to be implemented correctly already, what’s the point, aside from distinguishing features? that should be enough to let people pick one and be done with it.

 

[BDWoody]

after reviewing x number of DACs and having a handful that are verified to be implemented correctly already, what’s the point, aside from distinguishing features? that should be enough to let people pick one and be done with it.

Because new ones come out. Why a review site wouldn't want to continue to do reviews is kind of a strange question.

For me personally, since I have more than enough competent DAC's around, I don't feel remotely tempted by any of these newer DAC's that may measure better, because what I have would be indistinguishable in any kind of controlled listening test.

The ONLY reason I would get a new DAC is if there was a feature I was missing.
Unfortunately, much of the industry counts on people being gullible to artsy flowery prose, and it seems to work out for a lot of them. Fortunately, sites like this exist.

 

[Purité Audio]

Yes technical illiteracy and gullibility make a potent cocktail.
Keith

 

[mocenigo]

What is such doorstop? Never heard about it....

To dampen vibrations. Some people swear by it. Whereas there may be something to that, they sometimes go to unbelievable extents to avoid stuff from picking up vibrations, spending inordinate amounts of money.

 

[Killingbeans]

Whereas there may be something to that,

Don't bet the farm on it

 

[Frank Dernie]

To dampen vibrations. Some people swear by it. Whereas there may be something to that, they sometimes go to unbelievable extents to avoid stuff from picking up vibrations, spending inordinate amounts of money.

To be pedantic a weight will change resonant frequency and change the mode shape but it won't add any damping at all.

 

[mocenigo]

To be pedantic a weight will change resonant frequency and change the mode shape but it won't add any damping at all.

Yes. But if the resonant frequency gets much lower apparently it becomes less dangerous to the audiophile. And I was also referring to the intent, not to the actual physical phenomenon.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Yes. But if the resonant frequency gets much lower apparently it becomes less dangerous to the audiophile.

Ha-ha yes

 

[Teroz]

SO funny that people still thinks measurements are the only thing that matters.
This DAC totally kills any Sigma Delta/ESS DAC iw heard to date. Yeah it is on paper even worse than my topping E30 BUT topping has absolutely nothing on it. The sound is just 10 times better on this DAC. The layers of instruments and the soundstage is out of head, far outside of my head where topping E30 is just inside on ears.
The detail of instruments are just mind boggling compared topping. Even my friends new topping D90 can't touch this DAC.

With my STAX this is it, "the end game DAC" for sure for a while for me.

 

[Frank Dernie]

SO funny that people still thinks measurements are the only thing that matters.
This DAC totally kills any Sigma Delta/ESS DAC iw heard to date. Yeah it is on paper even worse than my topping E30 BUT topping has absolutely nothing on it. The sound is just 10 times better on this DAC. The layers of instruments and the soundstage is out of head, far outside of my head where topping E30 is just inside on ears.
The detail of instruments are just mind boggling compared topping. Even my friends new topping D90 can't touch this DAC.

With my STAX this is it, "the end game DAC" for sure for a while for me.

Well I hear big differences between record players and speakers but level matched I have not heard a difference between DACs I have tried from £1000 to £14,000.
If there seemed to be a difference it was vanishingly small and I couldn't repeatably hear it if I did not know which was playing, so inconsequential to music/enjoyment.
Claiming one DAC is 10x better than another and attributing it to the conversion technology is, at best, not remotely credible.

 

[Sukie]

The sound is just 10 times better on this DAC. The layers of instruments and the soundstage is out of head, far outside of my head where topping E30 is just inside on ears..

 

[solderdude]

SO funny that people still thinks measurements are the only thing that matters.
This DAC totally kills any Sigma Delta/ESS DAC iw heard to date. Yeah it is on paper even worse than my topping E30 BUT topping has absolutely nothing on it. The sound is just 10 times better on this DAC. The layers of instruments and the soundstage is out of head, far outside of my head where topping E30 is just inside on ears.
The detail of instruments are just mind boggling compared topping. Even my friends new topping D90 can't touch this DAC.

With my STAX this is it, "the end game DAC" for sure for a while for me.

As long as you are happy that's all that counts. Thanks for letting us know your personal observations. I am afraid they won't have any 'weight' for most ASR members. At least you got this of your chest and are letting 'us' think twice before trusting measurements again.

 

[Teroz]

Yeah i know, that's why i did say what i say. Ofc its not 10 times better but you can clearly hear differences. In a fact if people think 30$ DAC is as good as lets take chord dave then good for them. On my system it is clear as day.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Yeah i know, that's why i did say what i say. Ofc its not 10 times better but you can clearly hear differences. In a fact if people think 30$ DAC is as good as lets take chord dave then good for them. On my system it is clear as day.

Ah. I rarely listen to headphones, only when travelling so SQ is not a big consideration to me on headphones.
OTOH I do own a lot of DACs since I rarely sell anything. They are from many different technologies from discrete to Chord, to dCS to bitstream. I used to think I must hear a difference between the expensive and less expensive but to my surprise, level matched and blind, I could not.
I can hear the difference between some of the reconstruction filters and upsampling on the dCS, but with normal filter it was indistinguishable to the others.

 

[BDWoody]

In a fact if people think 30$ DAC is as good as lets take chord dave then good for them.

I'm one of the fortunate ones who has saved a lot of money when I put that thought process to 'the test'. There are lots of ways the Chord Dave (or fill in the DAC of choice here) could indeed be better, but consistently discernable audible differences under controlled conditions are doubtful, unless something is wrong.

The main thing is that you are happy with what you have, which it sounds like you are.

 

[Killingbeans]

Yeah i know, that's why i did say what i say.

I think you missed the sarcasm in the last sentence solderdude wrote

The measurements doesn't show anything wrong with this DAC. But if you want to convince me, that it does anything extraordinary, it's going to take some much more compelling evidence.

 

[decoRyder]

I bought this DAC, and after spending about 6 months with it, I thought I'd share some thoughts on it. First, I've come off the idea that R2R Dacs have some inherent' magic which will alter the sound in some 'special' way. Having spent a lot of time on the subject, on this forum, or by reading other sources, I am now convinced that it really comes down to the implementation of a DAC as a whole, rather than what conversion method is used.

The long and short of it is that I now own 14 DACs including this one, such as the Topping D50s, the ToppingD90, the SMSL M400, 4 Audio GD DACs and a whole bunch of NOS DACs. What sets the Ares II apart from all my other DACs is the fact that the sound has a 'plasticity' that the other DACs lack; the sound is more 'solid', and instruments are defined more clearly, and with greater weight. I used to think this might be purely because of the fact that this DAC is a bit sibilant on the top-end, but this 'plasticity' for lack of a better term manifests itself across the whole frequency spectrum, not just the treble. My SMSL M400 for example sounds 'flat' compared to the Ares II, and lacks that 'plasticity'; the same thing applies to my Audio GD R1 - it sounds very similar to the SMSL M400, but also lacks the 'plasticity' that the Ares II produces.

So comparing it to any other DAC I own, I keep coming back to this one. I honestly don't care why the Ares II sounds the way it does - R2R/Unicorn Tears/Build Quality/whatever - in the end it's a DAC that passes muster in terms of measurements AND sounds very good. For anyone interested, I do run the DAC in OS mode with the 'slow' filter; comparing OS to NOS mode I noticed that particularly with voices, the upper bass and mids seem 'detached' from each other and somewhat grainy in NOS mode.

 

[Harmonie]

I bought this DAC, and after spending about 6 months with it, I thought I'd share some thoughts on it. First, I've come off the idea that R2R Dacs have some inherent' magic which will alter the sound in some 'special' way. Having spent a lot of time on the subject, on this forum, or by reading other sources, I am now convinced that it really comes down to the implementation of a DAC as a whole, rather than what conversion method is used.

The long and short of it is that I now own 14 DACs including this one, such as the Topping D50s, the ToppingD90, the SMSL M400, 4 Audio GD DACs and a whole bunch of NOS DACs. What sets the Ares II apart from all my other DACs is the fact that the sound has a 'plasticity' that the other DACs lack; the sound is more 'solid', and instruments are defined more clearly, and with greater weight. I used to think this might be purely because of the fact that this DAC is a bit sibilant on the top-end, but this 'plasticity' for lack of a better term manifests itself across the whole frequency spectrum, not just the treble. My SMSL M400 for example sounds 'flat' compared to the Ares II, and lacks that 'plasticity'; the same thing applies to my Audio GD R1 - it sounds very similar to the SMSL M400, but also lacks the 'plasticity' that the Ares II produces.

So comparing it to any other DAC I own, I keep coming back to this one. I honestly don't care why the Ares II sounds the way it does - R2R/Unicorn Tears/Build Quality/whatever - in the end it's a DAC that passes muster in terms of measurements AND sounds very good. For anyone interested, I do run the DAC in OS mode with the 'slow' filter; comparing OS to NOS mode I noticed that particularly with voices, the upper bass and mids seem 'detached' from each other and somewhat grainy in NOS mode.

I just wonder how did you make your way to buy 14 dacs and some of the very recent/similar like the D90 & M400 ?
I mean, what made your move to acquire on and on similar dacs in a short period of time ?

 

[decoRyder]

I just wonder how did you make your way to buy 14 dacs and some of the very recent/similar like the D90 & M400 ?
I mean, what made your move to acquire on and on similar dacs in a short period of time ?

I don't do Vinyl, only digital. It took me too long to figure out that the DAC is probably the most significant component in the signal chain when playing digital audio. I used to think any halfway decent DAC would be sufficient - that assumption turned out to be very wrong : )
I wanted to know for certain which DAC offered a sound I could live with, hence the many DACs I bought. As it stands, I use the Ares II in my main system, and the SMSL M400 in my nearfield/desktop system.

 

[Killingbeans]

I used to think any halfway decent DAC would be sufficient - that assumption turned out to be very wrong : )

I've had the opposite experience

What proved your assumption to be wrong?