Denafrips FPGA Firmware Update


In case there are any Denafrips DAC owners out there that are not aware of the FPGA Firmware Update, here's the link:

I did the update on my Ares II earlier today and am currently enjoying the results.  It is definitely an improvement without question.

mceljo

@jaytor  Thanks for your quick response.  I have been using the NOS almost exclusively since I've had the DAC, so I look forward to your opinions on it with the firmware upgrade once you get your speakers back on place.

Regards,  John

@liquidsound I suggest you try it yourself. It is not hard at all, especially if you have a Mac laptop. Once I downloaded the firmware update tools, it took me less than 3 minutes to update my T-Plus to V3.7 and the same to revert it back to V1.0. To my ears, the sound of V3.7 is more detailed and focused with more texture and 3-dimentionality. Yes, there is more treble energy as far as I can tell. Also, the sound is not as lush and rich, and less forgiving (for bad recordings) as V1.0.

As I read through this thread I think the biggest takeaway is that ymmv.  My question is why have there been so many different versions of the updates in such a short time period? They just announced still another one for the Ares II/Enya. If Denafrips engineers cannot figure out what sounds best, how do the rest of us?

Good point! Speaking for myself, I was not looking for any change in sound as I am happy with the sound of the DAC as is. What prompted me to try the update is the claim by Denafrips that they fixed issues such as "audio latency", "phase difference between L/R channels", "buffer overrun/underrun due to the Source's Clock and the DAC's Clock differences", etc. I couldn't care less about what they did with "Optimized DSP to improve the sonic performance"...