I’m interested in getting a new Denafrips DAC

There are several on here who are 'ChiFi' haters, for whatever reason; they are also probably the same people who called the first Japanese motorcycles JapCrap, when they were massively better than anything America or Europe were producing!

@vinlymad814 - Yes, the Venus 15th IS extremely good, I've got one, and it replaced a Pontus 15th, as when I heard what amazing things the Pontus could do, I ordered the Venus 15th, and was even more gobsmacked at its performance, which, contrary to what ChiFi hater audphile1 says, there is NOTHING in the same price category as these two that anywhere near comes close. And there doesn't seem to be many 'horror stories' regarding contact/help/servicing anywhere else in the World except in the USA, and even then there are several on here contradicting you.

Audioman58 seems to be the only one who actually has personal experience of this (btw audioman, please learn to punctuate properly - there is no space before a comma or full stop {period to you lot}).

You lot are screwed, price wise, due to the absolute idiocies of your M***N of a leader.

I boughta Denafrips Pontus direct from Denafrips (in China) about 6 months ago.  I had no problem getting it via DHL in about 7 or less days....easy smooth transition with no problem.  I'm thinking your guy , in Maine, is doing the same thing, only adding his mark up.  Seems scary to send that kinda money overseas, but they were professional from the beginnibg.  By the way, I love my Pontus 15th and am not looking back for quite a while

@agram Yes, I got my Pontus 15th then a few Months later my current Venus 15th both direct from them, to me here in the UK, with all import duties/VAT paid for by Denafrips. It was c£1k less than buying from the then UK importer, who would not even give me a tiny £30 discount on the c£2.2k Pontus 15th, so I went direct and paid just £1.6k. That dealer was replaced as he was a useless arrogant dealer for Denafrips. It/they arrived in about 10 days from payment, with detailed updates from them on every step of the way. I could not have wanted anything better or more professional. An issue I had, not with the product, was responded to within 24hrs. These products are/were a bargain IMO, and far outperform DACs of similar value, from any manufacturer (I listened to a few of similar price, and a few a LOT more expensive, and the Denafrips was better than all of them). They do take many days to fully burn in though (the Venus 15th took about 3 weeks), but the wait is well worth it.

I have to agree with the positive comments regarding Denafrips DAC’s.  I’ve owned three of their models and still use a Pontus II in my 2nd system.  The Terminator Plus 12th-1 in my primary system that I sold was bettered by a Lampizator DAC costing almost 3 times more, otherwise the T+ would still be in use.  Yes there are many DAC’s these days to choose from and personal preference plays a big role.  But dollar for dollar the Denafrips models are still hard to beat, imo.

denafrips has always made high performing high value dacs, over time i have owned every model, from ares to terminator -- being a chinese company they have solid technical and manufacturing skills but struggle with overseas distribution and service

after making a good name for themselves early on and smartly using alvin/vinshine to ’go international’ i feel the principals got greedy and prematurely ’took out the middleman’, to the detriment of their business success

at the same time they launched a seemingly endless stream of new models, new designations, new anniversary editions with little substantive change, to the detriment of customers who had bought their ’now old models’ just a short while ago... many ’wtf’s’ were muttered...

now they are doing whatever they are doing with ’garlubridor’, yet another tiresome commercial wrinkle... reminds me of a fidgety adolescent who just cannot sit still for even a few minutes

all this said, their gear has always good, sonically, technically, and in terms of build quality, their older models are very good valueson the used market...  and in the usa they are lucky (and/or smart) to have todd king hold the fort for them with customers