Calling all DAC experts!

Just got a used Denafrips Pontus II I'm very excited about but having a hard time getting it to run.

My old set up was a small NUC with an i5 processor and 16 gb of ram running Windows 7 into an Eastern Electric Tube DAC Supreme. I use jriver MC26. It worked wonderfully, but wanted to try out an R2R DAC, so got the Pontus.

First thing I had to do was update my operating system to Windows 10 because the Thesycon driver that the Pontus uses is not compatible with Windows 7. System install seemed to go fine, used the recommended settings for jriver, but cannot get anything to play. Constant buffering and freezing of any type of files, even when I set a high buffering rate.

I thought it might have been an issue with the Windows 10 install, so did a clean install last night, hooked up my old EE DAC this morning and it played fine through jriver. Switched back in the Pontus, reinstalled the drivers and same problem - freezing, crashing, etc. Unusable!

Any ideas of what the conflict or problem might be? Anyone else run into issues with Windows 10 and the Denafrips drivers? Any help would be much appreciated!

 

Try the Denafrips thread here as well to get some help with your problem!

 

This is exactly why I steer clear of computer audio.

Hope you can get your issue resolved soon and share your impression of the Pontus which will possibly be my next DAC.

 

Since you updating to windows 10 from windows 7 just now, i could assume you've got older hardware...Update any chipset drivers etc? (pick the suitable one from the manufacturer's website?) Are you on a later bios? Take care of all of that first man...

 

After a recent struggle with an audio driver I found the simplest solution worked. Of course I tried it last. Try going into Device Manager and delete the USB audio device. Shut down. Turn off the DAC. Reboot the PC. Turn on the DAC after the PC is back up. Hopefully Win10 will find your device and set it up correctly.

 

Thanks - will do!

 

It can be frustrating when PC connected devices don't work properly. I agree with Kyle. Remove from device manager and let it try to recognize it again.

I was having problems with my Bluesound Vault 2i forgetting the network. Turned out it was also simple. My tablet was using a dynamic mac address. Set it to fixed and problem solved

I had a similar problem with my PC not playing through my RME dac. I went into PC 's audio properties and set it manually to ASIO and it played fine

 

Thanks - I'll see if I can figure out how to do that. It is older PC , but has an intel i5 processor and 16 gig of ram, so figure it should be able to handle it. While I was playing around, I switched the USB driver setting in jriver to WASAPI and its playing files. But the set up instructions tell me to use ASIO. Don't know enough about the differences to understand it all .

 

Just a horse of a different color. I think WASAPI is related to Win10, ASIO is the older version. I always try to use WASAPI in WIN10 and select exclusive mode if you can so other sounds can't creep in.

 

I know this probably won’t help much but.
It’s why I got rid of PCs and got a Mac.
I initially got the Mac because when I was playing guitar and recording DAWs can be a nightmare on windows. With a Mac it’s plug an play with all interfaces.

same as the Node streamer I just got used with my iPad. Seamless.

maybe get a Node and be done with all the windows woes?

 

I really love all aspects of my Gold Note DS-10. It has filter choices but I run it straight. The sound is exceptionally musical and involving.
That being said I’m very impressed with and would love to hear this one in my system:

brinkmann audio

 

You are probably correct. My understanding is that you can use ASIO4ALL instead. That said, there's nothing wrong with WASAPI so the OP might as well keep on using it.

 

I've never been able to make asio4all work. Don't know what I'm doing wrong with it. Tried it again yesterday and it made life worse for me. For some reason it was forcing the USB to 16/44 when I was trying to get to DSD128.

I didn't really spend any time trying to figure it out. Drilled into the settings and hit uninstall again and moved on.

 

For a long time Win didn't support UAC2 (USB Audio Class 2). Hence you needed 3party drivers to be able to play audio > 96 kHz.
Most of the time this was a USC2 driver by Thesycon.
Win10 supports UAC2 natively so de-install any 3pt driver and use the native one.

Maybe the Pontus comes with ASIO support but on Win WASAPI/Exclusive mode might be your best bet.
It works well with USB DAC's.
Maybe this link is of use: The Well-Tempered Computer

 

I did a clean install of windows (for the 3rd time) using the microsoft site instead of the start up stick I created, reinstalled jriver and the Denafrips driver and (fingers crossed) everything seems to working wonderfully - playing 24 bits and DSD's through ASIO without any issues! SO seems problem solved. Thanks, everyone.

 

I too have to remember to consult this forum’s DAC experts as will be dropping very serious money on my first one this year. Meanwhile, excuse if slightly off topic but since you guys are talking Jriver please consider making your voice heard at that forum.

Jriver probably has the most fully functional zoom control-and via IR remote-of any software player. Now if users can just compel developers to also add granulated slow motion control. Slow motion video playback

 

Windows = plug 'n' play since 2017