Am I Spending $1800 on a DAC! Denafrips Pontus 2 Review

Denafrips Pontus 2 www.denafrips.com/pontus ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------www.patreon.com/cheapaudioman ----patreon.com/cheapaudioman ----Tidal Deal bit.ly/3siuqSF ----Crutchfield shop-links.co/cguPK8XEGmt ----Best Buy Deals shop-links.co/cf9yDZeYtUH ---amzn.to/3GkNaop ---CAM Store (New Products!) bit.ly/30Lgu4K --apos.audio/?sca_ref=552340.TY98BPcZ6P -massdrop.7eer.net/qnOye5 -Amazon Unlimited Music and Disney Plus Free Trial amzn.to/3DRAVj9

Hi Randy, for those of us who are truly on a tight budget, the price difference between a Gishelli J2 AKM vs the Denafrips Ares II is substantial. I understand that there are definitive differences between the chip delta sigma construct vs the R2R. That said, both you and almost all other content creators rave over the Gishelli J2 AKM matching or exceeding their $1,000 delta sigma counterparts. And, you comment in this video that the Gishelli is your second favorite DAC to the Ares II. So, is it possible you could do a dac to dac review between the two explaining why or why not the $500 price difference might be justified to us working audiophiles who need to hear it from the cheapaudioman? Thanks

Welcome down the rabbit hole Randy! I agree, you can get very good performance for not a lot of money. But when you start going high end, you get benefits such as detail without graininess, smooth even. Thats when music start to become special.

I paid $830 last week for the Aries ii. Got it 4 days later. Love the thing.

Great review, I appreciate this as a Ares II owner. I like how you review more expensive gear from time to time to have more experience to be able to recommend cheaper alternatives.

I got Pontus 2 with Hermes ddc and I can say when I listen to my music I’m on heaven with my kefR11 speakers insane details Cheers buddy:)

This answers many of my questions about DACs in general. Good video!

I bought based on your ares 2 video, cost is 800+ USD for a while now. Very happy! Stopping here for now….😁

Agree the Pontus 2 is for better for higher end 2 channel systems. The I2S connection handles SACD as native DSD rather than PCM so if you have I2S outputs from your SACD player you will get DSD playback as the SACD signal is fully exposed.

I've been waiting for this review!

I got the Pontus II in January. It had static in signal. I was like, WHAT?!? Contacted Vinshine (Denifrips) and they had me flash the USB with files downloaded from their website with my laptop. A bit of a pain, drivers were not signed and windows doesn’t like that anymore. Had to do special windows boot up. Got past that, but flash didn’t fix it. Dang! Then they sent me a new USB II board… the one that’s in the Terminator. 😎 Put that in (it was easy, plug and play) and now it sounds sublime. Took about 3 weeks to work it all out. Vinshine does support their products and they are very responsive. They had a guy in Buda TX send me the board FedEx. Good people. I LOVE this DAC!! I’m running it with: Willsenton R8 Stock tubes BlueSound node 2i Heresy IVs

“Hi value” can apply to not so cheap equipment. You do you Randy, I appreciate your reviews for any and all components.

I love your videos. Very good stuff Randy. As always.

I bought the Denafrips Ares II (based in part on your review) and love it.

I owned the Pontus II for about 6 months (Sept 2021 - March 2022). In all honesty, I couldn't tell any difference between it and my Topping D90 (non-MQA)... except for the price. I tried all kinds of tweaks, but nothing ever really made a difference to my ears. A few reviewers told me the real benefits of the P2 could be heard with headphones. After 5 years working in talk radio, I can't stand those things clamped on my dome now. I ended up selling both my P2 and D90. I bought the FiiO K9 Pro ESS and have been quite pleased with it. I think I'm done with dac shopping for a few years. Excellent video, mate!!

Excellent, thanks for the heads up and the value comparison's you offered.

Just ordered an ares 2, thanks to you my man!

Well done. Your ears are spot on. I also have the Pontus 2 and also the Terminator Plus. Believe it or not, I prefer the Pontus a lot of the time… It has character, kicks ass!

The Ares II has made me spend so much money on hifi. I like it more than other dacs. I like it more than the dacs in AVRs. So I have made a separate home theatre system and separate music listening system as a way to compromise and not get rid of my ares II dac. I like the noise elimination of the XLR connections so naturally I made a purifi amp to go with my lovely Ares II. All these separates and HT systems in the same area have given me a ground loop that I have finally solved but when it comes down to it I can make up reasons why I can change everything else except the Ares II dac. It makes my 15 year old paradigm monitor 7s sound so good.

that looks like a BMF !! 😆 me Burson Composer is my favorite dac love rolling 4x dual discrete op-amps lets me fine to the sound ! And its a PreAmp with a REMOTE !! great job thanks Ran the audio man