Metrum Acoustics Octave - Page 10

Wow, the modded version just worked when set up for 4x upsampling. Perfect!

Mine arrived. It's rather aggressive-sounding so far, but it did arrive quite cold. Playing with up-sampling vs. not to see what the differences are. I'm going to switch out the RCA input with a proper 75 Ohm BNC at the first opportunity. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Currawong 

Mine arrived. It's rather aggressive-sounding so far, but it did arrive quite cold. Playing with up-sampling vs. not to see what the differences are. I'm going to switch out the RCA input with a proper 75 Ohm BNC at the first opportunity. 

I'm looking forward to your impressions against your other DACs, in particular Audio-GD...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Currawong 

Mine arrived. It's rather aggressive-sounding so far, but it did arrive quite cold. Playing with up-sampling vs. not to see what the differences are. I'm going to switch out the RCA input with a proper 75 Ohm BNC at the first opportunity. 

i'd be very interested to know how it compares to your old NorthStar 192 dac by memory.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kr0gg 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Currawong 

Mine arrived. It's rather aggressive-sounding so far, but it did arrive quite cold. Playing with up-sampling vs. not to see what the differences are. I'm going to switch out the RCA input with a proper 75 Ohm BNC at the first opportunity. 

i'd be very interested to know how it compares to your old NorthStar 192 dac by memory.

My Reference 1 made the Northstar unbearable to listen with. The Metrum makes the Reference 7 sound a little lacking in clarity.  My theory at present is that the Ref 7 is limited by the DSP. If I could get an Offramp hooked up via I2S to it then I reckon it would be much improved. The Metrum makes the music sound like someone fed it half-a-dozen cans of V first -- intense. Even background notes are hyper-intense.

To compare:

Ref 7.1 or Parasound DAC1600HD + Phoenix = Nothing but the facts ma'am. Equipment disappears, leaving just the music.

Not ideal:

Metrum Octave + Stax rig with SR-009s = Not pleasant, too hot.

Reference 7 + Stacker II + LCD-3: Too much bass, not lively enough.

Ideal: 

Metrum Octave + Stacker II + LCD-3 = Weaker bass of the DAC and intense sound + more musical tubes = perfect.

Parasound DAC1600HD + Stax rig = This is what instruments really sound like and I want to listen to Chopin all day.

The Octave + Phoenix is pretty good too.

The transport in all cases is an Audiophilleo 1 hooked in directly. For whatever reason, I'm preferring the sound with Amarra to using up-sampling with other software. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Currawong 

My Reference 1 made the Northstar unbearable to listen with. The Metrum makes the Reference 7 sound a little lacking in clarity.  My theory at present is that the Ref 7 is limited by the DSP. If I could get an Offramp hooked up via I2S to it then I reckon it would be much improved. The Metrum makes the music sound like someone fed it half-a-dozen cans of V first -- intense. Even background notes are hyper-intense.

 

To compare:

Ref 7.1 or Parasound DAC1600HD + Phoenix = Nothing but the facts ma'am. Equipment disappears, leaving just the music.

 

Not ideal:

Metrum Octave + Stax rig with SR-009s = Not pleasant, too hot.

Reference 7 + Stacker II + LCD-3: Too much bass, not lively enough.

 

so, i guess if chosing between your ex-Northstar and Metrum you would chose Metrum?

i'm having a hard time deciding which of these two to get.

what do you mean by "unbearable" when talking about the Northstar192mk1? :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by gregorio 


That's a good question. And the right answer would be that it sounds like anything which shouldn't be there. Not much help. A distortion is any alteration in the shape of the waveform. There are many types of distortion: Amplitude distortion, phase distortion, frequency distortion, quantisation distortion and harmonic distortion. Each of these distortion types has at least one and sometimes many different effects on the sound we perceive. This means distortion could be anything from low level noise (hiss), to pops, spurious tones, soundstage problems, frequency imbalances, etc., etc. With listening experience and comparisons between different sound systems the ear becomes more educated.
G

Sigma-delta dacs do only one of them right, the harmonic distortion. To our ears the most suble and malign time(phase) distortion is much more perceptible, and it constitute the "sweetness" "airiness" et similar of the S-D process.

At the same time the OLD lowres chips lack resolution and produce a very distinct sound that a few like as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by K3cT 

Keep those impressions coming, bobeau.

 

I wonder whether those "discrete DACs" that Metrum uses are similar principally to the UltraAnalog DACs that some DACs in the Sonic Frontiers line are using. 

Good catch!

Although I think it's some old chip from BB for radio-frequency, maybe put again in production.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobeau 

 

Yes, unfortunately I have to, it's run off my work PC.  I'm using Jriver w/ wasapi.

Can you upsample higher? 4x at least. It should fix the HF, provided that the output stage is any good.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobeau 

 

I've taken the advice of other owners out there and tried upsampling.  Holy crap.  I've tried to go back but I can't.  Using redbook there is a solid step from 44->88... and about a similar step from 88 -> 176.   I've tried hardware upsampling on DACs before and have hated it.  This is different.  The noise floor drops significantly, bass tightens up, and oddly enough, there seems to be no loss of body in the mids or a sense or hardness in the treble.  It's as if everything comes into better focus.  Of course since I'm doing this in software and the quality of the upsampler is crucial, using Reclocker audio renderer.  Haven't tried any others.

I see that you already did. The explanation is pretty simple, software upsampling is much better than any filter put into a DAC, especially if not asyncronous but done by integer. If you had a source that allows up to 384khz, another doubling of sample rate would push even further the conversion distortion and improve the SQ (maybe not as much as going from 88.2 to 176.4) :)

AFAIK no such interfaces exists, yet :)

... deleted ...

Could not resist any longer and bought an AP2 to accompany my Octave to WA2. Now just one more thing left to buy at some point to complete my rig - HE400 to compliment my SA5000 and T1.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobeau 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Currawong 

 

Not ideal:

Metrum Octave + Stax rig with SR-009s = Not pleasant, too hot.

Reference 7 + Stacker II + LCD-3: Too much bass, not lively enough.

Currawong, just curious if you have any further impressions now you've had the unit for awhile, burn-in, etc?

 

My early impressions are no longer valid, as the DAC has become more "normal" in the way it sounds, especially if playing back high-res files.  This is a pity in a way. 

I took it with me to the Tokyo meet last weekend. I will have to see if the guys didn't get any impressions from it compared to the other DACs there.

^ Why is it a 'pity', Curra?

It was quite fun at first. Hard to explain, but it made even the smallest sounds incredibly intense to listen to.