I am now the proud owner of two Denafrips products, the Pontus II, and the Fully Balance Athena per-amplifier.
My initial goal was to expand my ability to have additional balance switching for some of my source components to incorporate into my current two channel / home theater system. I’m currently using the Marantz AV8805 Processor.
After a brief discussion with Alvin about the possibility of incorporating the two components to satisfy my balance inputs switching and to enhance my two-channel listening, I ordered the Athena per-amplifier.
I received my order about 2 weeks ago, it arrived safely to my door steps, shipping was fast considering coming from Singapore. Thanks to you and your team for the status update of my order and follow-ups.
I let the system run-in for 100 hours before critical listening. I did listen to the setup first after a few hours of warm-up. I was pleasantly surprised by how clean the low-level signal retrieval was at low listening levels.
To fully warm-up, it took about 24 to 36 hours, after 100 hours of burn-in, I began listening to what I call rediscovery music that I enjoyed anew, so much more detail that I was missing from my original setup.
This pre-amp is quiet, clean and the sound is balanced. It made my original setup sound veil in comparison. The bass was clean, articulate and distinctly balanced with the rest of the music.
Mids were smooth; it gave me the impression of sounding like I was in a nightclub in the sixth-row seating center stage.
The highs are clean and full of details without any harshness to the sound. Stereo separation and air around the individual’s instruments were very nicely preserved. I did not notice from my listening any real coloration, just a balanced sound from top to bottom.
What is interesting with this design is it operates with unity gain (no added gain to the input signal). It is a true balance design with a class A output stage.
I’m using the Athena with the Emotiva XPA-DR3 Gen3 differential balance amplifier making the system truly balanced for two channel listening.
I am happy with the service and performance of my system and would recommend Denafrips products to anyone upgrading or assembling a two- channel system.
Thank again,
To Alvin, and the team.
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