The Denafrips Pontus II DAC Review!

Wonderful review, thank you

I'll be damned. John and I share a birthday! Having been out of the loop lately, it's a pleasure to be back. Very informative review, great script, and impressive, to me, sound track. And here I thought I couldn't afford Dennifrips. All of your hard work seems to be bearing fruit, and we all benefit from it. Please carry on!

Very interesting and well done, thank you Chris. Jim 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🙂

I have used all the Pontus II inputs simultaneously. A remote to switch between all of them to make easier comparisons would have been awesome. I absolutely loved my Pontus and I miss it sometimes but the remote did play in my decision on moving on and moving away from Denafrips (still have my little Ares in the bedroom lol) So all in all I agree with your assessment, and on the remote part too. Having tried all inputs I don’t agree on optical though, my favorite by far is i2S. BNC and AES were a tie for me. If someone has a node as a streamer and uses coax, I would say that it is 95% of the BNC and i2S. I tried it with the Node and Node 2i, ifi Zen Stream and Pi2AES. The “old” Node 2i was the best bang for the buck. I kept one as a streamer only. In my system and beats all the other ones in terms of wide soundstage, even the new Node. Hope that feedback can be useful for someone looking into one of those .

Enjoyed your thoughts on the Pontus after watching many of your analog related videos. I have also been happy with the Denefrips products. No complaints and I use the coax connection for my main streamer with great results.

Love the mention of blackthorn in your review- great vocalist as well

Great review. I totally agree on your optical comment! It's why I would choose the Enyo (formerly Ares II) over their Ares 12th anniversary edition. There are two AES inputs on the Pontus, but only one optical seems a little crazy. I still haven't seen a standalone streamer with an AES output. I've only seen that output on used on digital clocks.

Thank you for the great reviews you are making Sir. I just want to mention that the prices asked for the audio equipments are just ridiculous. This greed from the companies can be stopped by not buying overpriced stuffs. Thank you again.

Thanks for the amazing review, I wish more audiophiles had your musical taste! Prog rock deserves marvelous sound quality. I would love to know your opinion on the Gustard R26 (which has been preferred by some to even the Denafrips Terminator II) Thanks again!

FWIW-- From 'WHAT HI*FI' "If it’s a straight choice between coaxial and optical, we’d go for the former. In our experience, a coaxial connection tends to produce better audio quality than optical, allowing for a higher level of detail and greater dynamics."

I had never heard of Sons of Apollo. The first few drumbeats of MMXX blasted my nutz up behind the back of my neck. Now, I hafta go see a doctor, thanks a lot! 😲

I’ve owned the Pontus ll for over a year, in a high end audio system and have only one thing to say about it…IT’S A KICK-ASS DAC FOR THE JACK

Nice review! Concise and informative. My question is when you are talking about improvements and presentation are you contrasting between the pontus and Aries two or pontus and what other previous digital conversion?

Hi Chris. I just love your work and your ethics, thank you for that. In this particular video, when you say the Pontus II. Is overkill for your system, I understand you kept the Buchardt S400 mk2 hooked to a better Hegel Amp. So am I right to assume that the S400 mk2 are revealing enough? If this is the case, what type of an amp would you say is "good enough" for the Pontus II? Thanks, have a great day.

Exceptional review. I think it would be hard for me to move off Border Patrol but this review gives me pause to that thought. The caveats are reasonable.

Thanks for the great review!!! I like your pragmatic/ real-world approach to evaluating this and other equipment, much appreciated!!! BTW, have you ever tested the $250.00 Geshelli JNOG2 [J2]? It would be interesting to see if it competes (at all) with the lower-priced DENAFRIPS ARES II

Hi Chris, great review, and thank you for amazing channel. I wanted to ask how did you connected the pontus 2 to the hegel 390 amp. I have the 390 and love the internal dac but have the itch to upgrade the dac. I'm between pontus 2 or holo spring 3. Any suggestions 🤔

I just order a Pontus II 12th. I will be using it with the Rogue Cronus Magnum III and Magnepan’s .. thank you for the review. Next to find a turntable … any ideas?

I am looking forward to the free FPGA firmware update for my Pontus II to be offered on April 1st. 👍🏼

Would the Pontus 2 be suitable for a setup with Audiolab 9000a and Tekton Impact Monitors? Or would ares 2 be better for that system? I plan on pairing a eversolo amp-a8 as my streaming solution