Looks like I'm a bit late to the party but I'm currently a Menuet owner & sampled the Musette before it to confirm the Metrum Acoustics house sounds is what I was after.
To the OP, the Menuet has replaced the Hex & is the better sounding of the two. Their lower end DAC's feature trickle down tech from the Pavane, when they first released the Musette it was a nice jump up from the Octave it replaced & had closed in on the performance gap between it & the Hex. So the Menuet has again upped the performance vs the Hex & is now positioned between the old hex & the Pavane.
When speaking with Meturm they rated their DAC as ~, if Adagio is 100%, Pavane is 95%, Menuet is 80% & Musette is 50% (This was before Metrum started to offer the DAC TWO module upgrades to the Pavane). Many have called the Menuet the poor mans Pavane (85% of its performance for ~50% the price).
I was told Metrum will be offering the DAC TWO module upgrade for the Menuet in the future. This upgrade brings the Pavane very close to the Adagio & in turn the Menuet very close to the original Pavane (from what I was told by Metrum).
Even when listening to the Musette is was the first DAC I've had that made me go WOW right from the start. It replaced a Teddy Pardo DAC (previously used a Simaudio 100D & the OPPO BDP-95). Teddy was the best of the previous bunch, Musette was much better then the Teddy to these ears/what I'm looking for in a DAC.
Was always looking for the next upgrade in DAC's but is no longer the case. I will likely get the Menuet upgraded with the new DAC TWO modules in the future, as it sounds like a cost effective way to squeak out a bit more for performance for not much $.
