Metrum

[Dr Bunsen Honeydew]

Mine is a cheapy to go with the A20/P20/Cubettes system, you are looking for something better. I bet Lurcher could do a good job for you, PM him.

[Fretless]

The Metrum Musette is one I have heard of - reviewed in a close play-off against the Hegel HD12 that I now have.

George. Check out the Hegel HD25 & HD30.
Other good companies are: Moon, Wadia, Leema, Pathos.

[George Hincapie]

Thanks Fretless.

Will do.

[Fretless]

And then there are also:

Cambridge Azur 851D
NAD M51
Cyrus DAC XP Signature
Musical Fidelity M6DAC

[vrazjigwb]

I own the (older) Metrum Octave. And very good it is (to my ears at least).

Plenty about it written on the internet.

[Fretless]

I own the (older) Metrum Octave. And very good it is (to my ears at least).

That's good news. I'll have to see if I can get a listen - they're based just on the other side of Utrecht.

[vrazjigwb]

If you do get a listen - please share your thoughts. I'd be particularly interested in how the new "entry" model sounds (the Musette).
But please bear in mind that (at least the old ones) are far from detail freaks, but prioritise musicality and are a bit easier on the ear that most of the Delta Sigma DACs that I've heard.

[Fretless]

“It was 20 years ago today
Sgt Pepper taught the band to play!”

For me it is about 20 years ago that I, by accident, discovered the ‘outboard DAC’ and my digital hifi adventures really began. My 2nd CD player in the 80’s was a Cambridge CD2, a sort of home-built, clunky thing that could turn out some good sounds. However reliability wasn’t great in those pioneering times and the analogue output stage failed; I had a DAT recorder/player (remember them) that I had been given by a studio tech and had messed about with a bit – discovering that I could digitally record CD’s played on the CD2 onto DAT tapes at higher-than-cassette quality, pretty big news in those days. Hooking the digital output of the CD2 to the DAT player and setting it on ‘record/pause’ I could use the monitor function to get a nice, clean sound from my ‘broken’ CD player. Wow – amazing.

So, a few years and a few DAC’s later (I am currently running 3 in different installations here) and some strange Russian economist starts promoting his ‘non-oversampling’, single-input, Chinese-cased apparatus. Very expensive and huge sonic claims in the blurb – but this NOS idea kind of got my attention and I started to read up on it. The idea is that most digital audio processors start playing around with the data signal to get the maximum resolution out of it and then filter the result to smooth out any nastiness. A NOS (Non-OverSampling) chip just gets a data signal, converts it directly into audio at the same resolution and outputs it as an analogue music signal. No messing, no filtering, no multiplying the input frequency by factors of 8 or 16 to squeeze more clarity out. What you get out is what went in.

Metrum Acoustics are a Dutch company (Yay!) who have been in the digital audio business for about 25 years. They had a series of DAC’s based not on the aged Philips chips that everyone and their donkey were using – but had their own ‘secret’ processor, which came from an industrial systems source, not audio. However these chips got harder to find, and so Metrum set up a new company to design and manufacture their own ‘Transient’ processors, specifically for audio purposes.

Their original entry-level DAC was the ‘Octave’ and this has been replaced by the new ‘Musette’ which is fitted with 2 Transient chips, one for each channel.



After fellow HFS-er George Hincapie had mentioned to me that he had ordered one, I wandered into my local Hi-fi shop for a coffee and a chat. The name Metrum was dropped (they’re not far away from here) and I was offered the loan of a Musette for a week – an offer I couldn’t refuse – and came back out with one under my arm.

My current main system DAC is the highly-regarded Hegel HD12 with Native DSD, Variable output and a remote. The Musette has none of this, but costs the same. Plugging it in the HD12’s place I didn’t know what to expect but hoped that it wouldn’t make my Norwegian DAC sound rather flat, slow and lifeless. Unfortunately that is exactly what it did!

The holy grail that the NVA sound allows us audio fanatics to approach is a reproduction of music in a realistic, lifelike way that caresses your ears and touches your soul; ‘musicality’. Where the equipment vanishes and you are wrapped in a universe of rhythm and melody. That is what this little digital box can do – for me it is a quantum leap further than anything I have yet had in my system: natural, musical, transparent, detailed, holographic, balanced, focussed. This box has that ’magic’ – and it’s their budget player. Help!

This Musette will have to go back soon (sigh) – so I’m getting as much time with it as I can. Although you can bet I’ll soon be negotiating for a part-ex on the Hegel.

"They've been going in and out of style
But they're guaranteed to raise a smile."

[George Hincapie]

Fantastic write up Fretless!

It says a lot that, for you, the difference in presentation between the Musette and HD12 is so pronounced (the HD12 being widely regarded as a superbly performing DAC). I genuinely cannot wait for mine to arrive...

[vrazjigwb]

Thanks for the write up! Glad to hear that you liked it - guess my ears didn't deceive me, when I opted for the Octave.
The Musette is supposed to be a step up compared to the Octave due to the new chips...

Just a quick note - the original entry level Metrum was the Duo, followed by the Quad, and the Octave as their top of the line at that time. Soon after the Hex was released. The names represent the number of DAC chips in each one, if I'm informed correctly.

I'm in two minds at the moment to be honest - either get a new Musette or get my Octave upgraded a bit (given it's simplicity pretty much the only thing that could actually be done to it is beef up/"clean" the power supply)... The latter would be much cheaper and is probably the way I'll proceed.