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RE: Denafrips Ares 12th-1 DAC.....

I think it's a "Flavor of the Month" thing. I had the mega hyped Denafrips Ares II R2R DAC and thought it was kind of dull. By that I mean it was a little light on dynamics. It was very smooth but at the expense of detail. [The other one that was super hyped was the Chord Qutest DAC. That one was almost the opposite of the Denafrips. It was very clean and detailed, reasonably dynamic but lacked midrange warmth and low end grunt - IMHO]

The problem with Denafrips the brand (as I see it) is they keep coming out with a stream of "newer better versions" to keep the hype alive. After buying my Denafrips Ares II I was swamped with emails from them hyping their latest greatest newer versions of various DACs in their product line. Just my 2-cents worth of course. And my ownership experience with the Denafrips Ares II R2R DAC.

P.S. You have to be really careful with those YouTube reviews. There are so many YouTube audio experts living in their parent's basement with sensational headlines hyping products on their YouTube channels to grab more eyeballs (viewers). I try to carefully scour YouTube for the more sane reviews and ones that try to do honest comparisons. Do this with a few good reviewers and you soon develop a consensus idea for how the DAC you're researching sounds relative to others. Not much different than the professional old guard audio rags but the B.S. is much deeper on YouTube (maybe not as snooty but deeper for sure).





Edits: 02/04/24 02/04/24

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