Denafrips - VENUS II

Denafrips VENUS II draws inspiration from its big brother TERMINATOR DAC. Despite its physical size being exactly the same as the little brother PONTUS. This is done to achieve the highest quality of sound while keeping in mind the cost constraints. VENUS II is equipped with TCXO, DXD/DSD1024 DSP board, EVOX/WIMA caps, as well as the MU Metal sheet shielding in between the main DAC board and the encapsulated PSU enclosure. This all-aluminium enclosure doubles up as shielding and anti-resonance.

The Denafrips VENUS II is a true balanced, dual mono R-2R network array DAC. This means each channel is equipped with an independent high-speed FPGA to control the decoding by means of 4 sets of 0.005% R-2R network. This design has very small linear error, high decoding speed, low digital noise. This not only ensures that the audio signal has low distortion, but also to ensure a very low background music noise. All digital inputs are FIFO buffered and re-clocked by improved Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillators TCXO. The excellent rejection of word-clock jitter makes Denafrips DAC less reliant on the source equipment clock.

The chassis construction for the Denafrips VENUS II is full aluminium plates, securely fastened with internal brackets and no visible sign of bolt from the front panel and top cover. The all-aluminium enclosure doubles up as shielding and anti-resonance which is an important criteria for audiophiles. The company further enhanced and refined the linear power supply design of the PONTUS with premium components. The power supply is encapsulated in a thick metal alloy, equipped with dual o-core transformers, completely isolated super linear regulator, multistage power supply for digital and analogue sections, ensuring low noise, high availability power supply to the DAC.

VENUS II’s front panel is designed for easy access to most of the functions the device has to offer. This includes input switching, phase invert, choosing between oversampling or non oversampling mode, mute button and a mode button that doubles as a filter button, toggling between slow or sharp digital filters.

Denafrips VENUS II has multiple input options to choose from. This includes - Coaxial 1 via RCA, Coaxial 2 via BNC 75 Ω, TOSLink x 1, AES EBU x 2, USB and I²S via HDMI LVDS. The PONTUS II has two analog output options - RCA at 2.0Vrms, 625 Ω and XLR at 4.0Vrms, 1250 Ω.