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Denafrips Pontus II Clicks Or Static?

There have been some who have reported clicks or static occasionally with their Denafrips Pontus II DAC units.  And there is a test measurement review of the Pontus II 12th on the golden sound website talking about the following:

"When DACs oversample, they can sometimes encounter a situation where the reconstructed/interpolated waveform goes above 0dBfs (the maximum possible digital value)."

"The Pontus 2 is susceptible to intersample overs, and unfortunately, in a particularly bad way."

"The Pontus 2 does not clip, but instead when a sample value reaches above the maximum, it ‘wraps around’ to the minimum negative value, causing a huge sudden transient which will be very audible and may appear as crackling/popping."

Has anyone with a Pontus II encountered this anomaly when playing CDs?  If so, can you elaborate about that?  I am aware that the Pontus II can be firmware upgraded, so if this is an occasional issue, it could be eliminated with an upgrade.

 

 

fastcat95
fastcat95 OP
36 posts
 

Good!   Keep us updated on the Pontus II firmware update, and also if it makes any change in the sound.

designsfx
783 posts
 

@fastcat95 

In reading this I find it hard to believe that a reported issue like this has not been resolved by the manufacturer- I’m really sorry to hear about this. When you say “pops and clicks” are these similar to the sounds a dac makes when syncing up to a source or the sound sometimes heard when the incoming sample rate/frequency has changed from the playback source?

whipsaw
753 posts
 

@designsfx 

Alvin originally told me that the issue was "likely caused by the FIFO buffer overrun".

The first attempted firmware fix was released almost one year ago.

designsfx
783 posts
 

@whipsaw 

Honestly- if they’ve been dragging their feet on this issue for that long you made the right decision in getting rid of the Pontus. 
How is your La Scala working for you? 

whipsaw
753 posts
 

@designsfx 

Thanks. I have mentioned this a number of times previously, but Alvin, Denafrips' representative in Singapore, was always very communicative and helpful. However, the company itself has, in my view, handled this situation poorly, and the likelihood of a firmware solution at this late stage seems extremely small.

I was also a bit put off by the company's choice to continue to represent at least some of their DAC models as having NOS capability, when it was, and possibly still is not the case.

To be fair, I was broadly happy with the sound and build-quality of the Pontus, but with so many other interesting options in the market, I was happy to take a small loss on re-sale, and move along.

The La Scala sounds superb, though I recognize that some would find it to be lacking in features that are found in some other DACs. They are expensive, but I am confident that in terms of both build and SQ, I would not be likely to find anything much better, and probably at any price.

The other reason that I went with Aqua is that their elegant modular design would allow for fairly simple upgrades in the future, should I be tempted.

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