Metrum Octave Dac - What are the Chips used

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This fella should be given an award for having a go at a different means of making a DAC. It would appear that its something that his customers are happy with. Its not a scam, he doesn't make false claims for it and it does what it says on the tin.

Not only that - his DAC wowed Martin Colloms (who's by no means a rookie in subjective evaluation) with a score of 185 - head and shoulders above every other piece of kit he's scored here, irrespective of price:

HIFICRITIC, audio review magazine, hi fi critic

He (Cees I mean) gets a bravo from me.

@SoNic - you can hear above 22.05kHz then? Amazing.
 
That is just FOR YOU are not necessary. For people that don't like to hear fake alias products, is important.
I don't like to hear brass high-frequency sounds "folded" back into the bass section of the spectrum, you might like them.

Being a French horn player myself (mediocre amateur :(), auditioning the Octave dac in my system I can easily distinguish the particular sound of different brands of French horns (Alexander, Yamaha, Paxman) which are well known to me.
With my previous dacs there was more of a "general" horn sound.
To me this high degree of definition (also apparent with string instruments) is musically very appealing, and the decision to keep the dac was made in a split second.
IMO this has nothing to do with "fake alias products"; actually one more negative remark of someone not having heard the dac.
When more people show up here with positive reports, the negative ones will disappear, as usual....:)
 
I did hear plenty of NOS DACs and not filtering, the end is always bad. Maybe YOU are ok with that, or you don't listen to music that has serious content of high-frequency (cymbals), but I do and I did hear those artifacts.
Your affirmation was that filtering is not necessary in general, so I don't see the relevance if I did hear or not this specific DAC.
 
I did hear plenty of NOS DACs and not filtering, the end is always bad. Maybe YOU are ok with that, or you don't listen to music that has serious content of high-frequency (cymbals), but I do and I did hear those artifacts.
Your affirmation was that filtering is not necessary in general, so I don't see the relevance if I did hear or not this specific DAC.

When you check my previous posts here you will read that I was reluctant too, because experience with NOS dacs had not been very favorable until then.
But in this case the music wins, and why not accept that it can happen?
When you, and others like qusp, "already know what's going on, and don't feel the need to listen", you just do yourself short IMO (more friendly way to say you're a bit short sighted actually... :D).
 
I don't need to listen one SPECIFIC DAC to know that ALL the OTHER NOS DAC's and with no filtering that I did listen to sounded bad. So yes, the OS and filtering are necessary.
That was the affirmation that I combated:
Oh, and about NOS DA-conversion without any filtering: after having heard this one I'm of the opinion that oversampling and filtering are not necessary. The theoretical drawbacks remain just that: theoretical.
I see a general affirmation there.
 
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I don't need to listen one SPECIFIC DAC to know that ALL the OTHER NOS DAC's and with no filtering that I did listen to sounded bad. So yes, the OS and filtering are necessary.
That was the affirmation that I combated:

I see a general affirmation there.

These were not my words, but I'd say:
NOS DACS CAN SOUND EXCELLENT WITHOUT FILTERING.
There are two reports here that confirm this; other members, like you and qusp, are questioning this, but did not hear the dac, so what's the point?
Please don't come up again with "I don't need to because......".
It does not make sense to move around in circles.
 
I do not feel that NOS is without flaws. Indeed, aside from the zeroth-order-hold frequency response droop, which itself is easily correctable via EQ, I hear other artifacts.

To my ears, however, NOS does sound 'natural' in exactly those ways which CD has traditionally sounded unnatural when compared with vinyl.
 
These were not my words, but I'd say:
NOS DACS CAN SOUND EXCELLENT WITHOUT FILTERING.
There are two reports here that confirm this; other members, like you and qusp, are questioning this, but did not hear the dac, so what's the point?
Please don't come up again with "I don't need to because......".
It does not make sense to move around in circles.

If you would have said "This NOS DAC sounds good without filtering", I would see your point that I have to listen to the DAC to disagree/agree.
But you extrapolated (and jitter too) that all NOS DAC's sound excellent without filtering - and THAT I know it is not true since I did hear garbage in NOS DAC's without filtering.
And I know that no matter how you buid a NOS DAC, that garbage is not because of a specific DAC, but is from the NOS part.

If I add a dollar with a dollar I know that I will always have two dollars. Telling me that "adding THIS dollar with another one will give you three dollars, will not convince me, even if I never saw THAT specific dollar.

BTW: You don't even know that the metronom DAC is trully NOS!!!
 
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But you extrapolated (and jitter too) that all NOS DAC's sound excellent without filtering - and THAT I know it is not true since I did hear garbage in NOS DAC's without filtering.
And I know that no matter how you buid a NOS DAC, that garbage is not because of a specific DAC, but is from the NOS part.

You really should look back a bit: I never stated that all NOS dacs sound excellent without filtering.
Once more: until I heard the Octave, I was never impressed by NOS dacs of whatever pedigree.
The Octave was the first dac that, to my ears, was a real improvement over what I had until that time, and the fact that it is a NOS type is actually not important at all (but indeed proves that NOS dacs can sound right).
 
If you don't know what DAC it has, you are just beliving what the manufacturer says. Same as the reviewers.

Even if one knows the dac chip, that does not mean one knows wether it is a NOS or OS design; but frankly SoNic_real_one, I don't understand what you're trying to reach or prove with your senseless remarks.
The Octave is a NOS dac, according to specification, measurement, and sound :D.
 
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