Doubtful unless it is also a DAC. The renderer stage occurs at the output of the DAC as the filter choice selection.
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By definition DDC only has digital output. MQA Ltd. requires the MQA rendering (or full decoding) to be done to analog output and use DAC-specific filter that is created for each individual DAC after going through MQA certification. Therefore digital output only allows you MQA Core decoding at most (from Roon Core or Lumin digital output).
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@moderators, how about a Denafrips section under Audio Products?
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The connection between T+ and GAIA is i2s. The output I use on my CD transport is i2s. Not a problem; merely an observation. The GAIA is still in our to-be-ordered list.
Thank you for the info. So what kind of processing does Lumin U1 do with MQA? and what is the best configuration between N+ & U1 for MQA?
Certified MQA transport does MQA Core decoding to digital output, as does Roon Core. Digitally the decoded bits are the same. But if you want to take advantage of Roon Core DSP or upsampling, Roon needs to be the one who decodes the MQA Core. In your case with a non-MQA DAC, you should set the MQA Capabilities for Lumin to No MQA Support. This way you can do MQA Core decoding with Roon Core, and optionally apply further DSP if you want to.
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Here is a post from a private home test of Ares II users in Singapore…points about leaving the Denafrips DACs powered on 24/7/365 have been noted in the past.
Tested the Ares II in two setups over a period of 5 days.
- Ultrarendu USB to Ares II RCA to Mcintosh MA8900 to Kef Ref 1
In the above setup the goal was to compare the Ares II against the internal DAC of the MA8900. Straight out of the box, the setup sounded quite flat and warm but in about 4 hours of the DAC being turned on, the first thing that was noticed was the sound stage. It just was going much outside of the speakers. We played multiple tracks and when we close our eyes and try to point where a particular sound came and each time it was outside the realm of the speakers. When the Ares was removed from the chain, the soundstage from the internal dac became much smaller.
However we noticed that when playing fast complex with a lot going on, the Ares just could not keep up. Felt like the instruments were falling into each other like a collision. The bass was also not as impactful as the internal DAC. A quick message to Alvin and he advised that the Ares needs to be on for about 24 hours before it settles down. Let the unit on for a about 48 hours before we sat back again for a session of critical listening. This time we started of with Metallica’s Master of Puppets where the Ares struggled on Day 1. We noticed that the Ares 2 was a completely different beast than what it was on day 1. Leaving the Ares on for 48 hours seems to have given it a shot of audio voodoo and it managed to play the fast heavy metal songs much better. However there were instances when it still lost steam even compared to the internal Sabre dac. The internal dac managed to hold the song better together with clearer details but sounded digital. I will not recommend the Ares II if your music has too much going on with too many instruments. For all other genres, it is amazingly good for the money.
So my friend who has the Mcintosh feels that maybe moving up the chain will address the faster tracks. I think in all other areas, the ares was simply better and it made us rethink the idea of buying any gear with an internal dac. The MA8900 costed him close to 14 times the cost of the Ares so it was quite a bit of a shock when we saw how the Ares bettered the internal quad balanced dac.
- Elac Discovery Optical to Ares II RCA to Line Magnetic LM88IA to Elac Adante AF61
In this setup, the impact of the sound stage with the Ares was not as much as in the first setup. The sound stage did not expand as it did in the first setup and I think the reason being this setup had a pretty wide sound stage in the first place which I think is the nature of the Tubes or it could be that my setup is not as capable of extracting the most of the Ares. I don’t know so I will not speculate further.
I use my wife’s ears when auditioning any gear because high frequencies irritate her more than mine. So made her sit down and just told her to listen to Dreams by Fleetwood Mac with and without the Ares. I did not tell her what was what and just referred option 1 and 2. This was as close to a blind test as possible.
Her observation was that option 1 was easier on her ears. She could follow every instrument clearly. She could hear the background vocals clearly. Option 2 was good by itself but if compared with Option 1, she would definitely prefer option 1 and that was a big win for…
Option 1 was Ares acting as a Dac for the Discovery
Option 2 was just Disco as a streamer and dac.
My feeling after the trying the Ares 2 in different setups is that, it surely is an upgrade over the internal dac of your integrated amplifier or budget streamers (the discovery was bought for 1.8k sgd so it is not really budget but you should get the idea…). I am keen to hear the other Denafrips DACs especially the Pontus which at around 2.5k is more price appropriate to the rest of my gear.
Big thanks to Alvin for giving us the chance to try out this DAC in our homes. I wish more manufacturers offered in home auditions at least for smaller components like dacs/streamers so that it takes the guess work out of how a gear would perform with rest of your system.
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Interesting post.
Not to be confused with a 100+ hour burn in.
I’ve never turn off any DAC. Why would one? They don’t even get warm and the power draw in standby is probably the same as an RPi (or a router).
Or it could be the optical connection.
Something for classical types to think about.
There are two filter settings on the Terminator. I am interested in owners’ experience/preference with either the fast or slow filter (the filters only work in the OS mode).
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My T+ is one week old, I haven’t tried the OS yet… Currently, without OS, the sound is more heavenly than I ever heard before 
Will try to use the OS later, and update…
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FWIW, I use OS all the time. Terminator(s) …great units but also highly revealing of poor recordings.
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In this case the Slow roll off and sharp roll off will now come into picture… 
Got it… Now I need to figure what these two options mean & what they actually do…
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I am running Ares II to Musical Fidelity M6si and Klipsch Heresy IV speakers that is a very dynamic pair and I have no issues playing Slayer, Pantera, Metallica, RATM etc. This combination is very fast probably due to the high damping factor of the M6si and highly dynamic nature of the Heresy IVs. I compared the Ares II to the internal DAC of the M6si and Topping D90 MQA. Did not hear any issues with hardcore metal. Quite the opposite actually. Maybe it was just the Ares II, McIntosh, Kef combination.
I don’t know what to think of that. It could be good for chamber music but no good for symphonies?
I’m in the market for a new dac. I’ve been looking at the Ares 2 but am leaning towards the Schiit Bifrost 2. I’ve heard neither and read way too much about both. Sometimes I miss old fashioned retail hifi stores.
Yes, that seems to be the implication.
It is a sub $800USD DAC so I guess you have too have some compromise perhaps but its not my review - there are many other reviews of this DAC as a giant killer.
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Me neither! I think we really can’t make assumptions about what a piece of equipment might do in our system and room based on what it does in another’s system and room - good write up from the reviewer though.
I found the Ares II to be a revelation, after about 48 hours constantly playing silently things opened up a lot when I did sit down to listen, after around 80-100 hours playing there are differences - but I think they are all to do with soundstage - like people say, this DAC puts people and instruments outside the speakers - I’ve never encountered that before. Any other improvements over time could easily be lost in the typical changes ones hearing undergoes from day to day, even hour to hour.
I have a modest system right now… an Allo DigiOne sits in the rack as a Roon end point and feeds the Denafrips via a coax SPDIF cable (I think from Audioquest, nothing fancy). The Ares II feeds a Heed Obelisk SI integrated amp via the cheapest Van den hul RCA interconnects I could find (as a homage to the VDH The First cables I had many years ago in a far more esoteric system 
) and the amp is connected to my DIY full range single driver MTL speakers via some old DNM Reson solid core cable I had from years ago (I tried this new fangled Van Damme stuff everyone raves about on the forums but it was dull and bloated in comparison).
So, in my system now, after around 100 hours playing silently and maybe a week and a half of being left on, I can safely say the Ares II, as I said, is a revelation. It’s not a DAC at all, doesn’t sound like any DAC I’ve been playing with recently anyway (Topping, RME, Mojo) strands of sounds get sorted out into instruments and voices, high frequency noises turn into cymbals and high hats and actual sticks hitting rims of drums.
I certainly don’t find anything lacking in following complex mixes, whereas the DACs I have had recently all delivered the most amazing detail, compared to the Denafrips it is delivered all on one plane, like a wall of data. The Ares on the other hand turns the digits into music, separates those strands of sound into actual instruments, in layers and areas between and outside and even above the speakers. I personally find the damn thing astonishing and I am deliberately NOT even reading any comments about the options further up the range - well not yet anyway!
PS: It is not a cure for problems with the system itself, somewhere in my chain there is a brightness that can, on certain nights, on certain music, make me wince! I thought maybe the Ares would help, but no, I just get more interesting version of the brightness, more multi-stranded somehow? So measuring with REW shows a rising hump just where I would expect it to be and tons of bass issues (don’t even hear those), measuring with the RME DAC in place show exactly the same issues, identical frequency graph. So a little bit of judicious DSP in Roon now balances the mix much better. I really didn’t want to mess with the actual sound of the Ares and thankfully it doesn’t at all, just brings down some louder frequencies and sits them better into the room curve I was looking for.
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I personally enjoy discussion about components that I own and the experiences that others have. It is interesting that we can play a file one day, and it sounds warm and detailed and the following day, it may sound muffled, bloated and truly unlistenable. I continue to seek the experiences of others using the Terminators filters in its OS mode.
I use my Terminator in NOS mode generally, but when in OS mode, I find the slow filter works best for me. The fast filter seems a bit edgy to me? But For me, the difference between NOS and OS Slow is very subtle. When doing a direct A/B test, it’s sometimes difficult to hear a significant difference. I likely wouldn’t be able to tell which of those modes it was in for any given piece of music streamed in HiRes. Just my own experience.
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Thank you very much, Honestly, I do not hear a NOS/OS difference. I know that one Roon user has his filter set on low, and Stereophile (FWIW) seemed to prefer the low. At this time, I have no filter.
I wonder if those with a Terminator + DDC can hear a difference with that combination. I fear that these are very mild differences and perhaps not audible to us.