I hear ya!😁 I had an itch too. I just bought a Denafrips Terminator DAC after reading the buzz on the internet. I have around 45 hours on it and it is sounding pretty impressive.
They have a cheaper model called an Ares that suppose to sound pretty close to this flagship model.
If that’s true for the price it’s a great find. I think it cost 8 or $900.
It is a latter Dac like your Schitt.
Ares is listed as 880 Singapore dollars which is around 650 bucks.
@mresseguie, if I remember you did a eval also on the Denafrips DAC (I vaguely remember that it might have been sent around on tour)
Sorry, Nick we are hijacking your Border Patrol thread
Howdy!
I need to dig around in my cobwebs a sec. Oh, yeah. Well, briefly here's what I did:
I auditioned the Venus model which is third in the line. I got it with under a 100 hours burn in. It did not sound very impressive, but I know (and knew then) that good DACs need time to burn in. By the time it had about 150(?) hours on it, I took it up to Bothell, WA for an audio G2G. A bunch of us heard it, but no one got excited. The following day I drove home. I continued burning it in for another 100-plus hours. Somewhere in the 250 to 300 hours range I started noticing the kind of results that I had hoped I might hear.
I was preparing to fly to Taiwan, so I shipped it back to Singapore. At that time, my thinking was that I would order the Terminator while I was in Taiwan. However, my plans changed for a couple reasons. The biggest reason is I decided to bring my Don Sachs Model 2 preamp back to Oregon to pair with my D Sachs Kootenay 120 amp and my Apollo speakers. Without a good preamp in Taiwan, there's no point in buying a nice DAC that lacks a volume control.
A second reason why I changed plans is because I decided to audition a DAC while I was temporarily back in OR/WA caring for my mother (this past Feb and March). I ended up auditioning the dB Audio Labs Tranquility SE DAC (with Jupiter Cu caps!). I honestly expected that I would be underwhelmed by this DAC and would send it back to Eric Heider. Guess what? With zero burn in, I hooked it up to my system and it sounded wonderful. It took the Venus nearly 300 hours to approach this level. So I didn't send it back. I bought the damned thing. [It's not a bad damned thing. It's a great damned thing!]
I wasn't impressed enough by the Venus to want to keep it. The Venus and the Tranquility are about the same price, I think. I paid extra to have the Jupiter caps added.
I still have no preamp in my system in Taiwan. I'm using my Gustard X20u as DAC/pre. It's not nearly as nice as when my Model 2 was in the system, but it's not bad either. I don't know what I will do at this point. I keep my eyes peeled for used Lampizator Atlantic DACs with volume control because I know I love its sound. However, the price is kinda scary. Perhaps I'll feel wealthier once I manage to sell my home in Oregon?
Does this help?
Michael