Why are people selling their Denafrips Ares 2 DACs

I had the other day connected my WD 225 D as my mains which my Quad S2s reign prime. I was happily listening to music the next day little realising that I was listening to a speaker costing 1/4 of the Quads.

This is not the worst either. I have listened to music on my TV for a good half hour before realising that something was not right.

This. after listening to music for over a period of 40 years. I find it amusing and at the same time, glad that these days, ears and grey matter have evolved enough to tell the difference between DACs.

On the subject matter, I think that we should all create threads praising our equipment to lofty standards before putting it up for sale. Duh.
I'd be remiss to say it hasn't happened to me! 😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️😶‍🌫️
 
To eliminate or reduce the digital glare i added a tube buffer to the chain. It made the music more analog. When I say analog i am comparing the same track played by my TT vs played via Apple hires through Audioquest DAC. Details wise the TT couldn’t beat the Audioquest but tonality wise I preferred the TT. So as an experiment I added a tube buffer. I feel It brings some goodness of the TT to a good resolving DAC without breaking the bank.
To me this makes a lot of sense.
Be like @Amarendra! :)
 
Convenience.
What convenience? Ability to change tracks from your palm ? When was the last time you listened to an entire album while streaming ? (Don’t take it personally ) …
Streaming is good when one has friends around , or wants to check his gear , make comparisons, do some tests, or just casually working with some random playlist in the bg.
I listen to albums whole and that only happens when I’m spinning an LP or a CD, all distractions in the form of internet removed.
Even 30mins of such engagement with music is worth much more than one month of random flipping songs from my iPad, to me. :)
 
Last edited:
What convenience? Ability to change tracks from your palm ? When was the last time you listened to an entire album while streaming ? (Don’t take it personally ) …
Streaming is good when one has friends around , or wants to check his gear , make comparisons, do some tests, or just casually working with some random playlist in the bg.
I listen to albums whole and that only happens when I’m spinning an LP or a CD, all distractions in the form of internet removed.
Even 30mins of such engagement with music is worth much more than one month of random flipping songs from my iPad, to me. :)

Choices differ, tastes differ.
I do listen to whole albums over streaming too, streaming also helps in discovering new songs based on the song you play. Some call it Radio.

You can drop in anytime for a listen from next month onwards. I stay at Thane.
Count me in too Sir
 
What convenience? Ability to change tracks from your palm ? When was the last time you listened to an entire album while streaming ? (Don’t take it personally ) …
Streaming is good when one has friends around , or wants to check his gear , make comparisons, do some tests, or just casually working with some random playlist in the bg.
I listen to albums whole and that only happens when I’m spinning an LP or a CD, all distractions in the form of internet removed.
Even 30mins of such engagement with music is worth much more than one month of random flipping songs from my iPad, to me. :)
Playlists.
 
Playlists.
Playlist is the most most most important feature which make me use digital. Also the ability to recall and play any song. I have been collecting digital music seriously only since 2017. Before that it was mostly vinyl, tapes and CDs. Had around < 400 Gb of stored music. Before 2010 I listened to my stored music on itunes on mac or clementine on all my linux desktop/laptops/servers. Both itunes and clementine have an option to rate the song. If I liked a song, I would rate it 3.5, 4, 4.5 or 5 stars. Anything below 3 was average. If I absolutely detested any song, I woul rate it as 1 and that surprisingly happens to be songs from 90s onwards. I would listen to songs rated 3 only when I had only repeat songs in the last few days for songs rated > 3.5. The other thing that I have done is I have carefully tagged the artist, year of release, music composer, album art, etc for each and every song.

This players like itunes, clementine have an option known as dynamic playlist where you can put your own criteria. e.g. play songs rated > 3 and not played in the last 30 days. This enabled me to listen to only those songs that I love and not waste time in pressing the next button.
Then in 2017 I moved to music player daemon (mpd) on all my linux/macbooks. The Clementine database that had this rating was an sqlite database. mpd also uses sqlite database to store song meta information. I managed to export the ratings for all my songs to mpd. Also wrote an open source software to automatically genrate playlists based on listening habits. I have developed an concept of Karma for a song. If you skip a song, it's karma gets downgraded. If you listen to the same song multiple times in a week, it's karma gets upgraded everytime you listen to it. Over a period of 5 years or so, my raspberry pi's play to me songs that have earned a permananent Karma :D . The software that I wrote to do this rating and karma thingy is OSS/FS and hosted here


Nothing beats the convenience of playlists. By now I have almost stopped listening to vinyl, ripped all my CDs and my collection has grown to 1.9 Tb.

Now I have automated my raspberry/banana pi's to automatically generate songs as per my taste and listening habits. e.g. This is my bedroom banana pi playing on my headphone using auto generated playlist.


cantata.jpeg
terminal.jpg
 
Last edited:
Looking at this thread, looks like there will be lots of pontus in classifieds next year..

At this pace, we wouldn't have to wait till next year.

On the brighter side, the seller could just link this thread for various reasons for selling. In a first, the buyer get to choose the reason to buy, too.

What a time to be alive.
 
he he makes me hold on to my Soekris a little longer.

I Hope this thread is not damaging the seller's prospects which would be really sad.

MaSh
 
What do you think about the Qutest compared to your RME?
A bit difficult to say precisely since I do not have the RME with me now and a side by side comparison is not possible. Having said that I do feel the Qutest is the superior DAC. One of my distinct impressions going from RME to Chord was the refinement in the higher frequency and (don't quote me on this) a wider soundstage. Better tonality is a contributing factor too possibly.

The Chord is better as a DAC but RME was pretty good as a headphone amp (not perfect but good) and I could play around with filters and the parametric equalizer to tailor it how I wanted. Granted, most of the time this tinkering was for fun, to listen to music though generally one sticks to a setting they have felt comfortable with.
 
I came back after a few days and replied to the question I was asked...then I read the posts that came after and I am now feeling that the thread has gone on quite a journey of its own. All I can now be is a bystander and feel nostalgic about the days gone by! lol.

Btw, I am trying really hard not to try new DACs and cables on my system, I am trying even harder to convince myself I am happy with what I have. You lot are not helping, you never are if truth be told....in truth I hate and you and love you at the same time for it.
 
I’ve listened to the RME and Chord (Mojo) in direct A-B comparison on Quad S5, as well as Wharfedale Evo. Here is the deal. I preferred the RME over Chord because it sounded just a little bit sharper in the upper mids . DB1989 preferred the Chord for its overall resolution and tonality (he can elaborate better ). Mojo being less than half the price of Qutest I can imagine the latter would best the RME to my ears too significantly (I hope ).
 
For excellent sound that won't break the bank, the 5 Star Award Winning Wharfedale Diamond 12.1 Bookshelf Speakers is the one to consider!
Back
Top