Denafrips Terminator Plus Review - A Tasteful Alteration to Your Music 

I missed your reviews quite a bit during your hiatus. Very happy to have some new content to binge.

Brilliant review! This is exactly the kind of information that I needed to decide on my next DAC.

Thanks for the review. You definitely helped me in my search for an R2R DAC.

I love your way of review!

Thank you for your review - you played and referred to classical music this time! I have been using the T+ for well over a year now and enjoy every second listening to it - mainly classical music:-)

whoa great review, good stuff indeed!

Want to thank you for all the great reviews AND recommending Big Wild. Have been playing none stop 😊 On my beloved KTE May

Thank you for the honest review. I watched other reviews and no one mentioned any of the negatives you did. I was seriously thinking about buying this dac but I'll look for something else. You have a new subscriber.

Great review!!

Best audio reviewer on the internet. Ethical, accurate and interesting as always.

Paraphrasing “It sounds close when there is only a voice, and far away when there is more instruments … ” That is the sound of compression. Either mix-down bus compression or a compressor in the mastering stage.

very clear presentation of the dac's "presentation"...:-)

This is brilliant. After so many years hunting through the audio extremes . A clear and concise combination of how technology can affect what you hear. Maybe a white paper in the future? You are making a difference.

Well I bought it, and am very, very, very happy indeed. I was listening to Will Oldham last night and the timbre and detail of his voice made me feel like I was crouched inside his larynx. Which was sticky but great. I used to have issues with sibilance and a degree of smearing and confusion when things got loud and complex. All gone. Everything separate, everything in the right place all the time. The DAC conveys emotion in music like nothing I have ever heard and has shown me the true potential of my 15 year old Zingali speakers for the very first time. So thanks ! I do agree about the feet and the interface, both of which are pants. I have a friend whose wife kindly made up a laminated card that he can keep beside his Denafrips DAC to remind him what to do ! Hey, Carlos !

2 videos in 1 day!

Your reviews are so good and so informative. Never knew it was not a NOS DAC. Missing output buffer also not great for such an expensive DAC.

Thanks for this review! I would also love to see a review on the Musetec Audio (LKS Audio) MH-DA005.

Excellent review, good work. Please try to get your hands on a Tambaqui at the high end and a Hugo TT2.

Good to see you finally review this flagship DAC by Denafrips, especially since you have the Holo Audio May KTE and regard it very highly. You certainly gave it a thorough review and I expected it review as good but different to the KTE. I like your channel as you are thorough, analytical and say it as it is. Thank you 😎👍

These are crazy dacs, I did get a nice new job this year and maybe down the road I can get a rich guy dac but the D1SE or something similar should work for me for now

Personally own one w/ a Gaia. Started with the Ares II & upgraded stepwise to the top. The amount of fun I had doing so reminded me why I fell in love with this hobby.

Great review Indeed. There is a big gap in price between ares and terminator . What we are missing now to see the whole picture is a review of the Pontus II and a comparison of the 3 of them the get the sweet point in terms of diminishing return money/sound wise. Thanks

You're absolutely spot on with the review of the Denafrips DACs. I have a somewhat minimalist audiophile setup with Elac Navis ARB-51 active speakers, Denafrips Pontus II DAC and Signalyst HQPlayer. Some observations - i) Onboard oversampling of Denafrips is pretty average. Makes the sound somewhat like delta sigma DACs, a little thin, treble focused. Slow and fast roll-off filters make little difference. ii) In NOS mode the sound lacks a little detail, there is some high frequency attenuation and the sound becomes gritty. The true capability of the DAC is much greater but sadly subdued by average processing up front. I could have only found that with the help of HQPlayer. I upsample in HQPlayer to the highest supported by the DAC, 44.1 KHz -> 1,411.2 KHz and 48 KHz -> 1,536 KHz and then use NOS in the DAC. The resulting sound is very accurate and at the same time what I would say organic. It's detailed and warm without loosing anything in treble. I understand this bypasses the DAC's internal processing altogether as the signal is already at the highest sampling rate the linear interpolation that you've mentioned is no longer used.

Love your reviews and especially enjoy listening to your test tracks on my own system. Great way to discover new music! Have you considered reviewing a Gungnir multibit with Unison USB?

All most didn't play this video. I would have missed some great tracks, thanks. I have Jotunheim 2 , Soncoz $200 model dac, and some "Yes cables matter" cables. Best, D.

great review! it would be great if You could review another very interesting Chinese product the Audio gd R7 it would be very interesting among all the r2r dac reviews to include the R7!

I really enjoyed this review I'm considering either a Terminator plus or a May kte at the moment. I have had the opportunity to audition the Terminator plus, and l own a Gaia. Pick it up quite cheaply on the second-hand market. This is one of these questions that I think I know the answer to before I asked it. But I assume you will say you like the May over the Terminator plus for the reasons that I like, a good DAC, with authenticity in its presentation. I'd be interested in your thoughts regarding running the Gaia with the May kte would it make a difference to the presentation of the May. I love your videos and never miss one of them. Great job here with this review.🎧👍🙂

Interesting about the metal flakes internally. I had a Pontus 2 which I loved, but I had to get rid of it because it had a weird quirk where touching it with any static build up (extremely common in dry winters) would scramble the DAC - it would change inputs, change settings, or simply turn off as a result of "shocking" it. I'm no electrical engineer, but that seems to be a major design flaw - should that not be properly grounded to prevent that? Also, a REMOTE would negate the need to be touching it all the time!

Fantastic review as usual! Also, what's that cheeky Pink Panther statue doing over there? ;)

Glad I bought the Holo Audio May KTE :)

There is only ONE Golden Sound. It all rings TRUE. Always learn something; thx

Thanks for these dac reviews. They really are very good. In one of your reviews you mention you will be reviewing the Tambaqui. May I ask when? Also do you use a dedicated streamer and do you plan on reviewing any? Thanks again.

golden, I've been looking for a good budget r2r dac and I found the cayin ru6 that claims to be NOS. It would be interesting if you did a review of the ru6, as it is I think the most affordable r2r dac in the market.

That comment regarding the change in positioning of the vocals between simple and complex passages sound like the effect of a compressor/limiter processor in recording/mastering. I hear it a lot even on vinyl.

I know that my friend Jim F was excitedly waiting for this review to drop. He bought the review unit! Happy listening Jim you've got a classic!!! Apparently Denafrips should have called it a DSP DAC. I Have the Ares2 and love it. 🎶🙂🎶

Thanks for excellent review which I really enjoyed. I think it was good to point out the flaws. How does the Yggdrasil stack up at half the price ?

Gteat review. I got the D1SE on you recommendation and with it's Tube 3 sound color setting, it easily surpasses any other SMSL DAC I've heard. Could never buy an Ares II as with these devices, you need to have a preamp always and the one I can afford and own (Topping Pre90), due to Denafrips Output impedence which does not work with that Preamp (with an input impedence of 2.2K Ohms)...

Thanks a lot for your awesome, detailed reviews - I LOVE IT! I would be very, very curious if you check this DAC/Streamer combis as well, like Cary Audio DSM 650 or Linn products (no one ever does, besides pure sponsored ones), Weiss DAC 501/503 or Auqa Accoustic LinQ - THANKS!

Well I had similar experience with Sonnet Morpheus, simple Vocals with acoustic is in your head via headphone and complex songs will be more out of head

Pls review the Abyss Diana TC!

Outstanding work. Thank you! I am in the market for a DAC and taking my sweet time. Your reviews are narrowing the field for me. Curious if you will ever review DACs that are part of a streamer solution like the Lumin X1 or new P1, or the Esoteric N-05XD? These are on my list because my current streamer is the latest Bluesound Node, which I read I can improve with a separate power supply and board. Knowing I could do so, add the May and finally "be there" is perhaps my answer, but I will always wonder if a one box solution could be more to my liking.

Grest review thanks, have the Terminator II and when synched to a Hermes DDC via I2S it sounds better than USB straight but will check the channel swap lol, thanks for the tip 😀

He clearly states that it is a great listening experience on the one hand but not a very faithful or truthful representation on the other hand. He recommends it for enjoyment but not for his personal use case, which is reviewing. It seemed pretty consistent to me, as always:)

Why no Sonnet Morpheus review yet ?

Would love for you to review the Aqua La Voce S3, Mola Mola Tambaqui, nagra Dac, Berkeley reference 1, ares cerat kassandra, Totaldac D1- and Audio Note DAC 5

Thanks for the review. Do you plan to review the Musician Audio Pegasus DAC? Wonder how it compares to the Denafrips Ares II.

Loved this video as always packed with plenty of info. Can i request you to review a headphone amp. it's the SparkoS Labs, Aries. Andrew Sparko is always looking for people to review his products. Please do reach out to him. Once again, thanks for sharing.

It would be great to hear how you would compare this to the ares 2

Absolute phase does need to be used when you are playing a recording that has inverted absolute phase. Music is asymmetrical as I'm sure you know, and it is easy enough to have it be inverted somewhere along the line. Now the lack of a remote (?) make the phase switch (much) less convenient. I assume it has dual power supply - one for digital input side, and one for the R2R output side?

So according to your testing and experience, what is the most realistic sounding dac you have tried? Thanks!

It might be good to put your favorite reference real sounding dac in the description of your dac reviews? We’d like to know :) Great review! It’s the paradox of measurements vs what sounds good to us :)

I’m listening to you on Olina IEM’s on the IFI Go Blue 🥳

Great review. Also, where'd you get the wall art? looks good

this has nothing to do with the DAC itself, I just wanna say that you have immaculate music taste my friend 👌 (not only from the music selection in this video but your "wall of albums" have some great records)

Denafrips DACs and R2R DACs in general have certainly piqued my interest, but I need one without a super noticeable audio delay for video. Does anyone have a suggestion? Thanks!

That Pink Panther is hilarious. Now get one without a head.

Is the part about buffer clock true for all Denafrips DACs?

Thank you for your great reviews. I do have a different question - what cable are you using with your Susvaras?

Hello, not sure if I missed something or it is missing. Comparison with May DAC and some signal measurements NOS etc. Thank you

Does this DAC convert DSD to PCM and send it to the R2R ladder of does it have a separate DSD DAC to play dsd natively

Oh crap RebelAmp and Singxer in the same room, can you hear them buzzing at each other?

Why won't you answer questions regarding the may dac in comparison to termi?

Phase change should be at the rear. Just as other equipment; i.e. WiFi Routers, etc.

Notice that I seem to share many of your opinions on items you’ve reviewed that I’ve owned or listened to. From what I see you also enjoy a lot of the same music. Wondering if you would recommend a DAC for desktop headphone listening. Right now I’m switching between a Qutest and an Ares ii paired with a GSX Mini. Ideally looking for something R2R to replace the Ares as an upgrade while keeping the Qutest, price wise trying to keep it under $2k-$2.25k US.

Hi there,I own a venus2 dac from denafrips.what will be the best digital interface to accompany it. Chord mscaler or a digital to digital converter like the geaya

maybe the lower model Terminator 2 with Gaia and Terra clock will be the go?

Recently I have sold my Ares 2 model and moved up the ladder to a Venus ( just below the Terminater) So yes I like their DAC sound. My feedback is on the comments made that it doesn't make sense to add a Gaia because of the buffering in the Terminator. I have discussed this topic with Denafrips a few months ago and Alvin convinced me that even with the buffering in the DAC a more stable clock feeding the DAC does matter. Using a Raspberry PI to feed the Venus I added some modules from IAN canada to it ( I2S and reclocker). And while my brain still doesn't understand why, the reclocker does make a difference like Alvin claimed it would do. So there's something else we are bot overlooking ?

The powdery white substance is not metal dust. They are abrasives from the sand blasting process that got trapped inside the screw holes that were not properly cleaned up.

what is the best r2r dac so far you tried ? thks !

Please review Gustard R26 R2R

how would you compare it to Holo May?

Are the factory metal feet removable? How was is it with the WA33 and AB1266 Phi TC, I'm considering this combo?

How do you compare it to Rockna Wavedream?

Great review! How would you compare this to the Aries 2? Is it worth 6times than the Res 2? TIA

Great review! So what is a dac that you hear as “real” sounding? Not sure about the dsp being a reason not to compare the sound of one dac to another? They are boxes that convert digital to analog? Up sampling is dsp? Isn’t an FPGA essentially a software dac or dsp? I for one am open to hearing how this compares :) I’m personally often not a fan of how unnatural dsp can sound, though done very very well where it isn’t audibly detracting, I could accept it. Up sampling sounded so degrading or unnatural to me for a long time, like repeating bits that I’ve already heard? Or artificially interpolating something that is also not real. Maybe up sampling has improved? Your explanation of a problem with NOS on the T+ is interesting. I’m generally a fan of NOS. I’ve heard the Aries up sampling sounds better than it’s NOS mode too. A number of presenters at SoCal CanJam were using May stacks, they sounded good. I heard a Bartock Apex with and without a Lina clock with both ZMF Auteur Blackwoods and a Caldera. The difference with and without the clock was substantial on the dCS stack. Without the Lina clock the images are smaller with more apparent space and a bit of fiz in the spaces. Lina clock images are larger, more substantive, space is smaller between images, and space is blacker. Inspiring discussion is good :)

I have the Terminator II and also heard the Plus. It's very smooth...spacious, holographic, detailed, not ear fatiguing. How does Holo May's bass punchiness compared to the TPlus?

When is the atrium review coming?

I want a DAC for my TEAC CD-P650 CD player into my vintage Pioneer hifi system. A DAC that punches above its price. Any DAC suggestions?

I settled on a Spring 3 KTE w/preamp module largely based on your calculatedly thorough review. I look forward to its arrival. I like your reviews in spite of the fact that the only word one needs to describe goldensound's musical taste is vomit.

With all due respect- you are obviously a very sharp guy and do great, enjoyable reviews. But it is NOS. It just takes advantage of internal high speed architecture to interpolate and draw a straight line between (original) data points, rather than the traditional looking stair step waveform. The data points are not oversampled and there's nothing wrong with doing that. I built a 4x TDA1543 DAC years ago that did similar with 90 deg delays between DAC chips that each contributed 1/4 current to the output which drew a smaller step line between points basically. NOT oversampled, and not a big deal. It does move the ultrasonics around, which can be a good thing. And no, doing so doesn't introduce distortion in NOS mode. BTW your left side NOS image is NOT a true impulse, obviously.. And it doesn't matter where it came from. The Denafrips output is closer to a true impulse. A very high output impedance, well sort of. It's inline with pro audio specs actually, ~ 600R single ended. Just FYI, as an experiment I have attached a mu-metal core transformer output stage to the Tplus.. It didn't improve the sound. Feel free to try a buffer. However if you think about it, the preamp is the buffer basically, separated by the cable which does have impact of course (but either way, it's there). I also took that opportunity to measure the Zout. It was exactly as Denafrips stated. The Tplus is always smooth (doesn't shout at you) and in control. It's very nice. I listen to and compare to many excellent DACs. I don't hear any significant alterations in the music by the Tplus. They all sound different, very different in fact. I agree about the "outie" sharp feet. Denafrips has started to put the "innie" feet on instead, thankfully. They're easy to change out. Your comments about stage and such are also totally impacted by your preamp, amp not to mention the DAC supporting circuits as well (eg, output buffer, jitter, ..). Many DACs use op amps to create the voltage out. You can't just state its all attributable to the DAC topology, R2R vs Delta Sigma. And scr*w the usual measurements- they mean ~ nothing sonically.

You used serene as preamp wow wow, it must just be the holo magic lol...

What is NOS , Non Oversampling ? And how it is related to R2R ?

terminator+ does weird but really good brrrrr

Really appreciate your attempt at being honest and transparent, however, I feel that you’re glowing report of this device may be subconsciously biased by the fact that you need to sell it. Please don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that it is biased just start it maybe…

If you like “kick drums” listen to Train’s cover of Moby Dick. Killer drum solo. Kick drums and cymbals are mastered excellently. They cover the complete album of Led Zeppelin ll. You can thank me later…

Are you crazy :D? A non-warmed up yggy?

What do you think of this statement? Rob Watts said “It's absolutely impossible to cancel resistor mismatch as resistors age and have significant temperature coefficients too. Remember that to get -301dB 0.001dB amplitude accuracy you need matching to 400 dB that's0.00000000000000000001 % accuracy. Completely impossible to do this with R2R from matching POV - let alone the issue of signal correlated switching noise, which is another huge problem. There are plenty of people who prefer NOS and R2R DACs - but they are simply "enjoying" distortion.”

A month to late. The price went up 25%

A Delta sigma DAC with R2R holographicness??

I normally LOVE all your reviews but this one kept me being confused. For most parts you criticized this unit for several flaws but then constantly adding "if you buy this you will love it". This in my eyes and ears is not a good review, sorry. Even after watching all of it I was not sure either way. And then there were no comparisons to any other DACs. Is the Holo Spring 3 for example better/worse/equal ? This DAC is a very expensive 8500 and saying "i cannot compare it to anything else" does not really make sense, of course you could if you wanted to.

Thank you for great review. You didnt tell this but I will... KTE May Dac is >3k$ cheaper then this. And sounds better in all aspects. And measures better. And NOS is real NOS. Thank you.

Much R2R brrrt

I don’t agree it is better then the David or anything close in price

If you buy an expensive DAC, you need to consult

no subtitles make me a Sad Panda bew hew hew T_T

I fail to follow his logic. R2R dacs introduce distortion (aliasing in the frequency domain) for a perfect impulse response and he likes them. I think it is indeed a valid trade off. I love them too. MQA does the same thing pretty much but suddenly, it is unacceptable by principle; no listening test required. He gives a chance listening to the R2R dac so why could he not do a listening review of MQA and talk about what it sounds like.

“…unless your catalog is entirely positive…”. Steve Huff. He won’t review anything he “doesn’t like”. (Kind of like how many dealers say they only sell the best. Facepalm. ) Ever notice how he has SO MANY gear to review? Manufactures love sending him stuff. And laughing all the way to the bank. He wasn’t making that much on photo reviews so go to the next game. This channel is complete opposite of all them.

All of the selections except for the classical one at 17.30 are compressed. You can see it easily by opening up the sound track of this video on any audio editor (I use Audition 3 and iZotopeRX7) and look at those selections. The one at 8.30 is seriously compressed just after that 3 second 'intro', and that rap thing at 20.00 is not only compressed but also bass-ducked, rendering it unlistenable to my ears. It's the mastering stage where this crap is occurring and it makes the 'music' boring and tedious. ALL corporate-music output has been compressed and often clipping since about 1995, and practically ALL 'remasters' done by corporate interests are completely brick-walled and clipped from that time out. They call it 'the loudness wars', but that is BS, they're doing it on purpose. The only way to get natural sounding music is to go back to the original vinyls, CDs issued from before 1995-ish, or buy CDs and SACDs done ONLY by independent re-issuers such as DCC, Analog Sounds, and MFSL. The only selection worthy of evaluating this DAC is that classical selection. The rest are faulty from the start. Just saying.

I love my Denafrips Ares II 12th so much that I added the Denafrips Iris 12th. I decided to keep going and upgraded from the Ares to the Denafrips Pontus II 12th-1 and use it with the Iris 12th. Apple Music lossless My video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-G4IWhmkKsvM.html

You sound great ..but that first musical demo 🤢