Sound

The Asian DAC delivered tonally rich, well-balanced sound right from the start. The Ares II signature is set neutrally so that it easily fits into the wide range of equipment available on the market. The DAC delivers a very dynamic, detailed sound with a wide soundstage and great stereo imaging. The guitars sound tangible, and the bass line along with the drums dynamically and firmly keeps the rhythm. The whole is accompanied by well-lit treble, which perfectly presents the percussion cymbals. The treble is sweet, not too bright and very legible. The only downside of the tested DAC in direct comparison with the RME Adi 2 Dac FS (read the RME review) were the vocals. The human voices presented by Denafrips had a slight withdrawal, which gave them a lesser sense of communing with the artist. Vocals were not helped even by changing the cables to high-quality interconnects and speaker cables that I had at the time of testing. Changing the reference system on which the DAC was tested to a high-end split system from NAIM also did not bring any noticeable improvement in the vocals. I am not saying that it is hidden or poorly presented, but what I know from the RME reference DAC that I use every day slightly differed from the naturalness of the message contained in the music. Denafrips presented better stereo imaging with fantastic three-dimensional positioning of sounds. Ares II easily copes with the presentation of a wide 3D scene, where without special listening to the musical material, we can easily distinguish from which loudspeaker the given sounds come. The breadth and three-dimensionality of the sound is really impressive.