I first purchased an Ares II and it rekindled my life long love of music. It was able to draw me in to the emotion and drama in a way that I had not known before.
I spent many many hours rediscovering my music collection. I was blown away by the difference a good DAC had made and although I was not confident much more was possible the raving reviews the Pontus had recevied convinced me to go all out. When i received the Pontus, it was good out of the box.... but the real goodies only revealed themselves a week later. The "burn-in" period is real.
The Pontus II makes absolutely beautiful music, really stunning real music in my living room. I am listening into the early hours on a regular basis. I have experimented with all the inputs and prefer the AES input, with oversampling and the sharp filter. This was a big outlay for me and I could not be more pleased that I threw caution to wind and layed the money down. After the Ares II the Pontus represents the best money I've ever spent on hifi.
I was hoping to use the i2s input from my pi2aes streamer but the version P3 of pi2aes I have, appears to be incompatible. Vincent who has handled my concerns purchased pi2aes boards and identified that version P4 and version P3.3 work with the Pontus and is sending me their P4 in exchange for my P3 version presumably to identify the reason for the incompatibilty avoiding the problem for other customers. It has taken some time but Vinshine have found a solution for me, vindicating the faith I put in them. Could it possibly sound any better over i2s? I am very much looking forward to find out.
(Alvin: Pending update)
Thank you Vincent and Alvin for your great service!
Phil D. @ New Zealand
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