How good is Denafrips Pontus/Venus with Marantz AV 7706 for music listening?

aislam

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I am an audiophile, have an 11 channel Marantz 7706 pre-pro and Yamaha Avantage 11 channel amp in my dedicated music/movie room. Beside watching movie, I also use these for 2 channel music listening with Buchardt S400 MKII speakers. Sounds great - fairly clean, very spacious and warm. But the synergy is not that punchy and sound stage does not have forward or backward depth and separation of instruments between speakers. I am thinking of getting a good DAC to improve the depth, punch and clarity. I have Denafrips Pontus or Venus in mind, but would prefer to have something cheaper. If you guys have any experience of such combination (Denafrips+Marantz), please share your opinion.

I could get an integrated like Hegel 390 which has excellent review (though several reviews said it sounds artificial), but I am fan of separates for future possible upgrade. If you've any suggestions please share.

Thank you for your time.
 
I don't think that lashing out for an expensive DAC will fix that. I appreciate the s400's have had a lot of praise but they have also had a few negative comments about imaging problems if not positioned properly, they really need plenty of space behind them to get the depth, there are also reports that they can lack sound image height.
Amplifiers can make a big difference to the way a speaker images (as long as the positioning is sorted first) so yes I would say the Hegel may well sound better in this respect compared with what you are using currently, best to try and get a dem at home of the DAC and/or Hegel amp to decide which would give you the best improvement in 2 ch.
 

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