Denafrips Support - No Such Thing

I had a problem with my Ares II with noise bleeding into all of the inputs and the last line of the second email said

"Based on your description, it should be that your audio source is interfering with the DAC. Wish you a pleasant life!"

Thanks for the wonderful help captain obvious!

My experience with Todd at TEK Audio was outstanding.  He responded to every email quickly and thoroughly.  Better than some manuf. in the US or Europe.  

I prefer to buy directly from a US distributor when given the options.  If I had a Porsche I would not call Germany.  I had waited until I could find one knowing there had been some changes.  I bought other goods from Alvin and that was also a good experience.  

The fact that they both offered to help on a product that did not pass through their hands says something about their level of service.  

If anyone is considering buying Chifi equipment, as you've already seen; Alvin Chee at Vinshine Audio is the best there is. I've bought a bunch of gear from him over the last 4 years, and he is an honor to his profession.

Both Alvin and Todd helped me out tremendously with a problem purchase of a used Denafrips DAC several years ago.  It’s too bad Alvin no longer represents them.  Glad to see Todd still does.  

@ kmcong I’m sorry, I just don’t remember it that way at all. In fact below here is what I had replied to you in mid Feb, copied direct (along with 3 attachments). May the forum reader decide for themselves. Unfortunately I didn’t see any reply back.

And there seems to be a tendency for some to pile on negatively, but the fact is we are here to support what we sell and that is what we will always do as best we can. And as we said, we respond to all inquiries that we see. 

Hello xx, below is the link to the Hermes v1.8fw. Can you get to
it? In that is the FUT (.bat file) referred to in the guide. Also
attached is the update guide. It’s missing a Hermes related text for
Step 5:
For DDC
Hermes / Gaia DDC: Press Setup button once, thereafter, press USB button twice

You may find the USB fw update guide version more readable/useful,
also attached. Same procedure as the fw update basically.

As mentioned you could just run BCDEDIT CMD (Admin) to allow the host
to install unsigned drivers:
The command bcdedit /set TESTSIGNING OFF turns off test signing mode
in Windows. This removes the "Test Mode" message from the desktop.
Steps
Press the Windows key and then the X key
Right-click Command Prompt or Terminal
Select Run as administrator
Type bcdedit /set TESTSIGNING OFF
Press Enter
Restart the computer

In sum basically:
you need to get the config mode driver installed onto your host.
Put the USB attached DAC or DDC into update mode.
Execute the FUT.

Thanks, TK

 Here is the link to the V1.8
firmware:yy