If you are looking for an "analog" like sound without "digital irritations" but room filling delicaty the Metrum Octave is for you.
If you are looking for the highest possible detail revealing resolution, even when it is a wee bit fake and sounds ever so slightly phony, the Octave might be not for you.
I was looking for the perfect sound and after some transistor amps, I went tube with a The Fisher X-100 A.
To have an "analog" sounding DAC I went the NOS - non-oversampling way with an Moodlab Dice. After buying an Antique Sound Lab 1003 tube amp, I looked for an upgrade DAC wise too.
Having realized, that Delta Sigma continued the horrible oversampling DAC sound, I wanted a "non BS" DAC which translates to multbit without oversampling, upsampling or added needles "for better measurement" (Delta Sigma) nor "all needle" 1bit DSD.
I got my hands on a Metrum Octave mk1 and feed it from my Mac with an optical TOSLINK cable. That is a very cheap and solution which allows long cables without loss, but the resolution is limited to 96khz.
After realizing the perils of the "Loudness War" (Audacity is your friend), which even has infected HDTRACKS I replaced most of my iTunes lossless CD collection with ripped vinyl files.
They come in 192 and 96khz and I convert or downsample them to 24/96 Apple lossless for iTunes.
I don´t like DSD / SACD rips either, so multibit non-BS does it for me.
On the Mac side the freeware sound converter XLD is a gem and Audirvana or Amarra betters the iTunes sound performance. Amarra is very sensitive, so a memory update (16gb) might be in order.
I don´t do any BS upsampling of CDs, but even CDs sound quite "analog" and "meaty" with this DAC.
The Octave betters your CD sound in every regard, and with "highres" can even match a good turntable.
If you are looking for the highest possible detail revealing resolution, even when it is a wee bit fake and sounds ever so slightly phony, the Octave might be not for you.
I was looking for the perfect sound and after some transistor amps, I went tube with a The Fisher X-100 A.
To have an "analog" sounding DAC I went the NOS - non-oversampling way with an Moodlab Dice. After buying an Antique Sound Lab 1003 tube amp, I looked for an upgrade DAC wise too.
Having realized, that Delta Sigma continued the horrible oversampling DAC sound, I wanted a "non BS" DAC which translates to multbit without oversampling, upsampling or added needles "for better measurement" (Delta Sigma) nor "all needle" 1bit DSD.
I got my hands on a Metrum Octave mk1 and feed it from my Mac with an optical TOSLINK cable. That is a very cheap and solution which allows long cables without loss, but the resolution is limited to 96khz.
After realizing the perils of the "Loudness War" (Audacity is your friend), which even has infected HDTRACKS I replaced most of my iTunes lossless CD collection with ripped vinyl files.
They come in 192 and 96khz and I convert or downsample them to 24/96 Apple lossless for iTunes.
I don´t like DSD / SACD rips either, so multibit non-BS does it for me.
On the Mac side the freeware sound converter XLD is a gem and Audirvana or Amarra betters the iTunes sound performance. Amarra is very sensitive, so a memory update (16gb) might be in order.
I don´t do any BS upsampling of CDs, but even CDs sound quite "analog" and "meaty" with this DAC.
The Octave betters your CD sound in every regard, and with "highres" can even match a good turntable.
