Metrum octave or Wyred 4 sound coax vs usb

My digital collection is a fraction of my LP's. Even with a nice tubed universal player digital was simply a convenience for casual listening with an annoying quality.

After ripping my digital collection I auditioned the W4S and a few other well reviewed conventional DAC's at home but I was unable to audition the Metrum Acoustics Octave side by side. The W4S has impressive connectivity and it did improve the sound quality.

Bhobba is an excellent digital component resource as is Elberoth2. Between them they made a very good case for me to purchase the Metrum Octave without audition. They were spot on, thanks guys. IMO the Octave kills the W4S because it's simply way more analog like in its presentation to my ears in my system.

I don't doubt for a minute that the Octaves performance could be improved to some degree by adding an Empirical Off Ramp or a Synchromesh in front of the Octave but it's not required to get a very good presentation from the unconventional designed Octave.

For me the issue was simply getting past that horrible digital presentation without spending thousands of dollars. The Octaves unique NOS design partnered with a Squeezebox Touch being fed wirelessly from an Apple Airport Extreme upsampled Channel Ds reasonably priced Pure Music Audio Engine does just that.

Hi Bolero, to be honest, I haven't tried Octave without Synchro-mesh (reclocker like AP2). My impression on Synchro-mesh is with my old Electrocompaniet ECD-1 dac. If you can wait, let me give a proper burn-in on Octave (it will hit 400 hours by this coming weekend), I will try feeding it direct with optical out from AppleTV (16/48) and report back. I fully expect it to be inferior, but I do not know how much.

To be honest though, if you have a less than ideal transport (PC, AppleTV, Sonos, SBT) with a sub $1k-2k dac, products like Off-ramp, AP2, Synchro-mesh will surely take the sonic performance to another level, regardless of how good jitter rejection is claimed to be by the dac manufacturer. Metrum doesn't have an internal clock. In 6moon review of Synchro-mesh, it does say the improvement is not noticeable with PS Audio PWD2, which has a very good internal clock.

hi again.
after buy iphone now my budget goes down to 500-600$ for dac lol. so now i dont have the money for octave dac but i tought maybe to buy cheap dac like HEGEL HD2 (what u think how it will sound on my system someone try it ?), and if it will nice dac for now maybe someday that i will buy the metrum octave dac it can be use as usb-->spdif convert .
what you think my friends can you help me to decided ?

metrum quad

I haven't heard the syncromesh but like all of Steve's products will be good. I don't know if it is better or worse than the AP2. People who own one tell me Steve is spot on when he says its about 90-95% the performance of the Off-Ramp which would put it about the same as the AP2.

I don't know the EE DAC although guys whose ears I trust speak highly of it. I own the M51 and I give it a slight edge over the Metrum. It has a more natural sound - but its a personal preference thing - some describe it like putting a blanket over your speakers and knowing the particular DAC people who said that were comparing it to (a PDX) I understand the comment - the PDX is a very dynamic, forward and in your face DAC - clearly better than the M51 (also twice the price) but for some its a bit too much describing the PDX like ultra violence - but to my ears the PDX is simply more real.

Thanks
Bill