Denafrips Pontus ii dac User manual

V1.

5th Feb 2021

PONTUS

DAC

OWNER’S MANUAL

Contents

1. INSTALLATION & SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS ........................................................................... 2

2. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 3

3. DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS ........................................................................................................... 4

3.1 ADAPTIVE FIFO BUFFER RECLOCKING ......................................................................... 4

3.2 I2S INPUT ..................................................................................................................... 4

3.3 PROPRIETARY, STATE-OF-THE-ART USB INTERFACE ................................................... 4

3.4 PROPRIETARY SPDIF DIGITAL AUDIO RECEIVER .......................................................... 4

3.5 NOS/OS ........................................................................................................................ 5

3.6 PROPRIETARY R-2R AND DSD DECODING ARCHITECTURE .......................................... 5

3.7 DAC ARCHITECTURE .................................................................................................... 6

4. OPERATING INSTRUCTION .................................................................................................. 7

4.1 Quick Start Guide ........................................................................................................ 7

4.2 USB DRIVER INSTALLATION – WINDOWS OS ............................................................ 12

5. SPECIFICATIONS ................................................................................................................ 16

6. WARRANTY ....................................................................................................................... 17

1. INSTALLATION & SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS

This DAC is designed and built to provide trouble-free performance, but as with all

electronic devices it is necessary to observe a few precautions:

 Unpack the DAC carefully.

 Position the DAC on a stable, horizontal surface, i.e. sturdy rack.

 The DAC supports voltage 100-250VAC worldwide voltage. Please connect the AC

power cord with earth(ground) pin unless it is absolutely required to reduce hum

from the ground loops of the connected devices.

 Always ensure that when disconnecting and reconnecting your audio equipment the

mains supply is turned off.

 Position the power cord and signal interconnects where they are not likely cause trip

and fall hazard.

 Do not use the DAC near water, or place water-filled containers on the DAC. Entry of

liquid into the DAC is hazardous and may cause electric shock and/or fire hazard.

 Do not place the unit under direct sunlight or heat source.

 Do not remove any covers or try to gain access to the inside. There are no user

adjustments or fuses to change without qualification.

 Clean regularly with a damp soft cloth. Do not use any cleaning agents as it might

damage the surface finishing.

 The electronics in modern hi-fi equipment is complex and may, therefore, be

adversely affected or damaged by lightning. For protection of the audio system

during electrical storms, disconnect the mains plugs.

2. INTRODUCTION

Thank you for purchasing the DENAFRIPS PONTUS DAC.

The Pontus DAC is a true balance R-2R DAC. Each channel is equipped with independent

high-speed FPGA to facilitate the D/A conversion by 4 sets of 0.01% R-2R arrays. This design

has very small linear error, high decoding speed, low digital noise, not only to ensure that

the audio signal is low distortion, but also to ensure a very low background noise; allow

listener to enjoy the true music with quiet background.

We are confident Pontus sound quality far exceed its modest price tag.

3. DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS

3.1 ADAPTIVE FIFO BUFFER RECLOCKING

The DENAFRIPS approach to address the jitters issue by FIFO BUFFER RECLOCKING. The

adaptive FIFO buffer store the source digital audio data in the memory. These data are read

from the memory using the low phase noise, precision FEMTO Clock, located right in the

DAC.

This technology is close to the perfection, especially so with the local FEMTO Clock. The

jitter is so small that it can be neglected.

3.2 I2S INPUT

PONTUS comes with a LVDS I2S input over the HDMI connector. Despite the I2S input has no

industrial standard, it is probably the best digital input interface to-date. NOTE: DENAFRIPS

cannot guarantee the compatibility with other I2S devices.

3.3 PROPRIETARY, STATE-OF-THE-ART USB INTERFACE

The PONTUS is equipped with the proprietary USB Audio Solution, powered by STM32F446

Advanced AMR Based MCU. DENAFRIPS redesigned and optimized circuitry, allow the DAC

to be used as high-end DAC with computers / streamers. It supports 24bit/1536kHz PCM

data stream, and native decoding of DSD up to DSD1024. It comes with licensed THESYCON

USB Driver for Windows Platform.

NOTE: The USB Module is designed to trigger on only when USB Input is selected. This is

intended design to reduce digital input interfaces cross-interference for best sound

reproduction.

3.4 PROPRIETARY SPDIF DIGITAL AUDIO RECEIVER

The SPDIF Coaxial, Optical, AES/EBU input support up to 24bit/192kHz digital audio format.

The PONTUS abandon the use of Digital Audio Receiver chip. The digital data is decoded by

the on-board FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), signal path is shortened and

eliminated the undesirable coloration.

3.5 NOS/OS

The PONTUS allow the user to change the sampling mode on the fly.

NOS, as the name suggested, does not apply filter or over-sampling to digital input data. The

sampling rate of the digital input signal remain untouched, and it is converted to analogue

output signal right away.

In OS mode, the PCM 44.1kHz or 48kHz based audio data are up-sampled to the maximum

rate of PCM1411.2 or PCM1536. There is no up-sampling of DSD audio signal.

3.6 PROPRIETARY R-2R AND DSD DECODING ARCHITECTURE

The PONTUS is equipped with 24Bit R-2R DAC to decode PCM data stream and 32 steps FIR

analogue filters hardware decoder to decode DSD data stream. These designs guaranteed

the PCM format can be perfectly decoded, at the same time, the DSD format can be

perfectly decoded as well. It is rare in the currently market that a R-2R DAC can hardware

decode both the PCM and DSD formats.

3.7 DAC ARCHITECTURE

DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING – All digital input data are stored in the on-board FPGA high-

speed RAM.

FEMTO CLOCK – These data are read from the memory using the low phase noise, accurate

FEMTO Clock, located right in the DAC. The processed data are sent to the final stage

Discrete R-2R for DA conversion.

R-2R LADDER NETWORK – The data bits are converted to analogue signal by the true

balanced R-2R ladder network arrays. The linearity of the conversion is guaranteed by the

high-precision thin film resistors, with low thermal effect temperature coefficient of the low

10/15ppm.

4. OPERATING INSTRUCTION

4.1 Quick Start Guide

Figure 1. Front Panel

(1) Standby Button

Press the button once to switch on the DAC, vice versa, press once to put the DAC into

standby mode. The Standby LED shall be on when the DAC is in Standby Mode. The LED shall

be off when the DAC is in Operating Mode.

(2) Control Button (From left to right)

a. INPUT + / Input - :

Press the buttons to select the input source, namely, CO1, CO2, OPT, AES1, AES2,

USB, I2S. Press + to select the next right input. Press – to select the previous left

input. The respective input source LED shall be on to indicate that the input source is

selected.

b. PHASE

Press the button to toggle Phase Output. LED On: Positive Phase, LED Off: Negative

Phase

c. OS/NOS

Press the button to toggle between OS/NOS model. The LED lit to indicate the DAC is

in NOS mode.

d. MUTE

Press the button to enable/disable Mute. When mute, the Input Signal LED will be

blinking from Left to Right.

(3) Digital Audio Signal Input Sampling Rate

The following table illustrate the Input Sampling Rate LED status.

Base Sampling Rate Multiplier Input Format

44.1 kHz

1X 44.1 kHz

2X 88.2 kHz

4X 176.4 kHz

8X 352.8 kHz

16X = 2X + 8X 705.6 kHz

32X = 4X + 8X 1,411.2 kHz

48 kHz

1X 48 kHz

2X 96 kHz

4X 192 kHz

8X 384 kHz

16X = 2X + 8X 768 kHz

32X = 4X + 8X 1536 kHz

DSD

1X DSD 64

2X DSD 128

4X DSD 256

8X DSD 512

16X = 2X + 8X DSD 1024

Table 1. Sampling Rate

Parameter Settings:

(1) Filter Selection (Effective in OS Only)

1. Press the Mute button once to enter configuration mode

2. Press the Mode momentarily

 OPT On = Slow Filter

 OPT Off = Sharp Filter

3. Wait for 10s

4. DAC back in operational mode

(2) Dual AES/EBU Input

1. Press the Mute button once to enter configuration mode

2. Press the INPUT+ momentarily, CO1, CO2 LED will turn on/off

 CO1 On = Dual AES/EBU Input Enabled

 CO2 Off = Dual AES/EBU Input Disabled

3. Wait for 10s

4. DAC back in operational mode

(3) I²S Pinout Configuration

1. Select I²S-A Input

2. Press the Mute button once to enter configuration mode

3. Press the Phase button momentarily, 1X 2X 4X will turn on/off in a fixed pattern to

denote binary 000-111

 PSAUDIO I²S Standard = 1X On, 2X 4X Off = 100

4. Wait for 10s

5. DAC back in operational mode

Video Guide:

https://www.denafrips.com/config-pontus

I²S Pinout Configuration

LED DATA BCK L/RCLK

1X 2X 4X Pin1 Pin3 Pin4 Pin6 Pin7 Pin9

0 0 0 DATA(-) DATA(+) BCK(-) BCK(+) L/RCLK(-) L/RCLK(+)

0 0 1 DATA(-) DATA(+) BCK(-) BCK(+) L/RCLK(+) L/RCLK(-)

0 1 0 DATA(+) DATA(-) BCK(-) BCK(+) L/RCLK(-) L/RCLK(+)

0 1 1 DATA(+) DATA(-) BCK(-) BCK(+) L/RCLK(+) L/RCLK(-)

1 0 0 DATA(-) DATA(+) BCK(+) BCK(-) L/RCLK(-) L/RCLK(+)

1 0 1 DATA(-) DATA(+) BCK(+) BCK(-) L/RCLK(+) L/RCLK(-)

1 1 0 DATA(+) DATA(-) BCK(+) BCK(-) L/RCLK(-) L/RCLK(+)

1 1 1 DATA(+) DATA(-) BCK(+) BCK(-) L/RCLK(+) L/RCLK(-)

Table 2. I2S PINOUT CONFIGURATION

Figure 2. HDMI i2s Input

Figure 3. Read Panel

Description:

(1) AC Power Supply

CAUTION! PONTUS supports worldwide AC mains, range from 100-250VAC. The Please use a

good quality power cord with earth/ground pin connected

(2) Analog Audio Signal Output

Balanced output via XLR (pin2 hot), singled ended output via RCA. The PONTUS is a true

balanced DAC, we recommend using balanced output whenever possible. The RCA and XLR

output are shared, please use either of the output at a time. It is not recommended to use

both RCA and XLR output simultaneously.

(3) Digital Input Interface

There are 8 Digital Input Interfaces, namely, COAX, AES1, AES2, OPT, I2S-A, I2S-B, I2S-C, USB.

4.2 USB DRIVER INSTALLATION – WINDOWS OS

USB driver is required for Windows Operating System (Windows 7/8/8.1/10, X86/X64). The

USB driver is licensed by THESYCON to provide the highest quality audio playback for

Computer Audio System.

NOTE: Mac and Linux OS do not require the USB driver.

Installation Guide:

 Download the driver from the support page: https://www.denafrips.com/support

 Do not connect the USB cable from the computer to the DAC. Remove it before the

USB driver installation

 Double click the “DENAFRIPS_UsbAudio_v4.82.0” (or the latest version) to install the

USB driver.

 Follow the on-screen instruction to complete the installation

Figure 4. Welcome screen

Figure 5. Default Installation Directory

Figure 6. Preinstallation Successful

Figure 7. Completed

 Restart the computer to complete the installation

 Connect the USB cable to the DAC

 Power on the DAC. Select USB input

 The USB DAC shall be detected. The driver status can be monitored as follows

Figure 8. Taskbar & Control Panel

 Select DENAFRIPS USB DAC as default Windows OS Soundcard

Press Set Default button

Properties of the DENAFRIPS USB DAC

Direct

Sound default

format

ASIO Buffer Size

Playback software recommendation:

 roon

 JRiver

 Foobar2000

 Sonicstudio Amarra

5. SPECIFICATIONS

Description Parameters

AC Power

Worldwide AC Power Supported 110 - 230V, 50/60Hz

In 110VAC mains, the min voltage ranges from 92V to max 126V

In 230VAC mains, the min voltage ranges from 184V to max 253V

Power Consumption < 30W

Frequency Response 0-70K Hz(-3dB)

THD+N ≤0.0025% (1KHz A Weighted)

Output (RCA) 2.2(+/-10%) V RMS(1KHz)

Output (XLR) 4.4(+/-10%) V RMS(1KHz)

Supported Format (DSD) DSD64 All Input

DSD64 – DSD1024 USB & I²S Only

Supported Format (PCM) 24bit/44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4, 192 kHz All Input

44.1 – 1536 kHz USB & I²S Only

S/N Ratio 115dB(RCA), 114dB(XLR)

Dynamic Range >117dB (RCA), >121dB(XLR)

Stereo Crosstalk ≤-100dB(RCA), ≤100dB(XLR)

Dimension 320 *330 *80 mm

Weight 8.5kg

6. WARRANTY

DENAFRIPS PONTUS purchased from the Authorized Distributor comes with 36 months of

warranty from the date of purchase / delivery (whichever later).

Defective

Within

Warranty Policy

First 30 Days

DENAFRIPS

to bear both way shipping fee.

Within 1st Year

Customer to bear one

way shipping fee.

DENAFRIPS

shall

cover the return shipping fee.

Within Warranty

Period

Customer to bear both way shipping fee.

DENAFRIPS

to repair

at free of charge.

Out of Warranty Customer to bear both way shipping cost. DENAFRIPS to

provide repair / maintenance services at cost.

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