[thee8thgoonie]

Had a chance to listen to this over the weekend and very impressed! 

 

[TokenGesture]

Anyone upgrading to the Menuet ? 

 

[dasher]

  Anyone upgrading to the Menuet ? 

With the Musette barely broken in? 

 
Probably not. Having seen what the Musette can do, if I were to upgrade, I'd be saving my pennies for a Pavane.
 
Is the Menuet available in England yet?

 

[Vanquisher]

  Anyone upgrading to the Menuet ? 

 
Planning on it. I have my Musette up for sale in the classifieds if anyone is interested.

 

[thecrow]

   
Planning on it. I have my Musette up for sale in the classifieds if anyone is interested.

i found the hex >>>>>>>the octave mkii
 
as good as the musette appears to be ( i have not heard it) if that holds for the relationship between the menuet and musette.......woo - hoo!!!!
 
i hope it does
enjoy

 

[TokenGesture]

   
Planning on it. I have my Musette up for sale in the classifieds if anyone is interested.

I'm trading my Musette in for the Menuet - couldn't resist in the end - (thanks to an understanding dealer and a maxed out credit card).  "poor man's Pavane" here I come 

 

 

[TokenGesture]

 
With the Musette barely broken in? 

 
Probably not. Having seen what the Musette can do, if I were to upgrade, I'd be saving my pennies for a Pavane.
 
Is the Menuet available in England yet?

Mid Feb I'm told.  Menuet is the 'poor man's Pavane" according to Metrum, and as I am a poor man I hope to be rich(er) in sound very soon!

 

[Vanquisher]

 
I'm trading my Musette in for the Menuet - couldn't resist in the end - (thanks to an understanding dealer and a maxed out credit card).  "poor man's Pavane" here I come 

 

 
Haha. Enjoy! I'll see if I can sell here if not i'll shoot the dealer a note about trade in and see where it goes. I'm switching up my whole setup at the moment so I'm back to square one looking for an amp.

 

[Contrails]

The Musette is now feeding the Wa22 which is powering the Lcd-X. Very nice pairing and I haven't even plugged in the Super tubes yet! This Dac pairs well with the V200 too. Seems to be making a good pairing with most amps out there.

 

[Rockcoon]

After 3 months of active use I can say, that i'm still happy with Musette, as it was in first days. No plans for Menuet. The only upgrade that come into mind is external usb converter. Full SoTm or Berkeley Alpha.

 

[spytsi]

Any ex-Musette owner has the Menuet in hands?
Comparisons? How better the latter sounds,
compared to Musette or the Hex?

 

[TokenGesture]

  Any ex-Musette owner has the Menuet in hands?
Comparisons? How better the latter sounds,
compared to Musette or the Hex?

1st batch has been dispatched to dealers late last week... should have mine soon

 

[zilch0md]

  Musette is much less dark than my old Octave.  It may be amp combination that is colouring the sound. I had the V200 myself, great amp, but tended to make everything sound V200 ish.  The Metrum Aurix is very different - it is really transparent, lets the source shine through with very little intervention.  With this combination I am finding it much much easier to hear differences in masterings, dynamics etc in recordings.  Also allows the different headphones to really express their individual signatures.

 
Yes, I love the Aurix, especially with the HD800.  Together, they allow you to "honestly" hear the DAC and the recording it's converting.  And even though the Octave MkII was my first component to make the HD800 enjoyable for actually listening to music (instead of using it strictly as microscope for analyzing upstream gear), right now, believe it or not, my favorite DAC for the Aurix + HD800 is the ES9018K2M DAC within the Oppo HA-2, portable DAC/amp.  Sad, but true.  

 
I like the Oppo HA-2's ES9018K2M DAC much better than the ESS9018 implementation of my Oppo HA-1 (especially for USB input), and I like it better than the Octave MkII, for the Aurix > HD800, but I'm very interested in the Musette.
 
This may seem like sacrilege, but I find that the Octave MkII and Aurix kind of work against each other. Ironically, the zero-feedback design of the Metrum Aurix, does not generate any of the low-energy, down-near-the-noise-floor, distortions caused by using negative feedback - of which Cees Ruijtenberg, Nelson Pass, Robert Harley, and Dan Cheever have all written, among others - but this lack of low-energy distortion that comes with a zero-feedback amp (as with the Aurix) - which is so precious for digging out the micro-details that can greatly enhance sound stage, imaging, and naturalness of timbre in both voices and instruments - can't be appreciated in combination with the higher-energy distortion (that which negative feedback eliminates) of most NOS DACs (as with the Octave MkII, but especially noticeable in lesser NOS designs). 
 
In other words, my most expensive DAC and amp (Octave MkII + Aurix) make a s somewhat self-defeating combination - at least when used to drive the highly resolving HD800 - as the Octave MkII generates enough readily audible, high level, NOS-typical distortion to obscure a good recording's lowest-level details. Together, they are really good for the HD800, but not ideal, in that the Octave MkII is robbing some detail from the low-level signals that could otherwise pass unharmed through the incredibly transparent, zero-feedback Aurix - which, in 0 dB mode, acts as nothing more than a passive pre-amp, matching impedance and providing an attenuation control, to drive the headphones with only the voltage output of the DAC (which is more than enough).
 
Although some people find the Octave MkII to be somewhat "loose" in bass control, I'm OK with it there. My greater concern, comparing it to what I most like about the less than perfect Oppo HA-2 ES9018K2M is the Octave MkII's overall lack of dynamics and a lack of sufficient resolution to enjoy that low-level detail that the Aurix can communicate in spades.  When low-level information is obscured, the soundstage shrinks, imaging becomes less focused, the sense of air and space is lost, and the timbre of instruments and voices begin to loose their natural distinction - kind of like a Chinese restaurant that uses the same glazing sauce on everything they serve - homogenizing the flavors of each entree.
 
I do, however, absolutely love the total lack of "digititis" - the natural, analog quality and lack of brittle edginess offered by the Octave MkII. So I'm a fan of NOS, for sure, but I want all that's good about what it offers. plus all the delicacy and finesse of the Sabre sound. Is that what I'll get with a Musette?
 

 
Mike

 

[TokenGesture]

Yes - I think so.  The difference between the Octave (Mk1) and Musette was not small, in terms of tonality and detail retrieval for me, while keeping the fluid ease. There you go a one sentence answer to a 4 paragraph question 

 
In other news - Menuet arrived yesterday. 4 week burn in recommended!

 

[Gibalok]

Musette is very strong competitor to other more pricey dacs (Eximus DP-1). The difference among them is in details. Musette is very soft, musicall but slightly laid back comparing to Eximus DP-1. But given the 3x smaller retail Musette is a value for money and a stole. If you are not averse to marginal increment of sound quality to significantly bigger prices you can go to PAVANE and MINUET. IMHO