Metrum Onyx versus Metrum Pavane

@msommers 
   I’m eyeing up Pavane L3/Adagio and thinking "will the bass improve enough that it’s worth it?"
I can only speak to my system where I have consistently enjoyed Metrum DACs over others such as Lampi, Aqua HiFi, and Ayre. 

To my ears, there is more depth, tonal density, drive, and refinement as you move up the ladder with Metrum.  Of these attributes, probably most noticeable to me are the improvements in tonal density and bass impact/depth.  Although I found the Jade to sound quite good when I had it in my main system for several weeks earlier this year, there was a definite improvement in the attributes listed above when I installed the Adagio.  I should let you know my main speakers only go down to about 40Hz and then pass off to a pair of large subs below that so the deep bass differences may be less noticeable to me than to those whose main speakers handle all the bass duties. 

I still own both the Pavane and the Adagio and would say the differences there are close to a wash and may depend more on the preamp you are using with the Pavane.  When I first owned the Adagio a year or so ago, I heard a richer, fuller sound from the Pavane through my unity-gain/buffer preamp than I did with the Adagio amp-direct.  I have since purchased another Adagio but found to get the sound I want I also had to play it through my buffer preamp.  I was able to remove the volume control from the signal path of my preamp and replace it with two Audio Note Silver Tantalum resistors so volume is now controlled solely from the Adagio.  For me it is the best of both worlds so I will probably be selling the Pavane soon.

Thanks for your input! I have read a few times now that the preamp section in the Metrum units (and it's exactly the same in Jade and Adagio according to Metrum) is of very high quality. I use a tube preamp so it could be more of a case of different than better here as well. In my setup now, the Gungnir can certainly deliver bass impact/slam/authority so it's capable. Though I'm sure I will always wonder how the volume section compares and end up with Adagio anyways. 

What buffer preamp do you have? What did it bring to the table that you felt Adagio->power amp was lacking?

The Metrum DACs do not have a conventional preamp section.  The potentiometer adjusts the reference voltage which in turn affects the voltage output thereby adjusting the amplifier output and the system volume.  Steve Nugent's Empirical Audio DACs do it the same way.

My preamp was custom made by Steve McCormack of SMc Audio from the TLC-1 platform but highly modified and improved so the result is very similar to his VRE-1 preamp.  Mine is set for unity gain while some of the VRE-1s utilize 6dB gain through their Lundahl transformers.  The volume control was an expensive Shallco switch with Audio Note Tantalum resistors.  Steve graciously instructed me how to unwire the Shallco switch so it is out of the circuit but two resistors were needed to replace the switch and I chose to use two very large and expensive Audio Note Silver Tantalum resistors.  I am very happy with the result and the Adagio through the buffer IMO beats the Pavane through the preamp with volume control.

Hi guys, I have read this thread with great interest, as I am looking for a DAC. I have never auditioned any Metrum products nor in fact any R2R DACs. But what I read about the natural timing, flow and micro dynamics certainly strikes a chord here.

I am currently using a relatively modest Innuos ZEN - Naim V1 DAC - Lavardin IT - Zingali Overture 2s, where the DAC is clearly the weakest link. The R2R philosophy mirrors Lavardin capabilities perfectly as far as I can see. I considered Border Patrol DAC, Shiit and some middle of the range Denafrips, but something deters me (for different reasons) from taking a punt and going for any of those. Metrum though looks quite convincing from what I have read so far.  

As my room is far from ideal and I am not an audiophile per se and just prefer listening to the music (no offence to anyone here!) I guess Pavane would be an overkill (tell me if I'm wrong), so I am looking at Onyx.

My main concern is the link to the source, as ZEN has USB output only and with the right application it sounds just stunning. Is the Onyx USB asynchronous? How good is it compared to other inputs? What will I need if the I2S input is clearly superior? I don't want to complicate things by adding another (expensive) box.  

Any thoughts are highly appreciated. And if anyone has the experience with Zingali/Lavardin, any opinions re matching my system would be great! Many thanks. 

A general comment, those looking at high end Metrum DACs should investigate the Sonnet products devised by Cees, the engineer/founder of Metrum before it was sold. I had lots of Metrum products, and the Onyx was my favorite (only used the RCA input via a baby ambre so I can’t comment on USB, sorry!) They have not been responsive of late so I worry about ongoing support (in fact Cees himself is providing “unofficial” support for those products as you will find if you search various forums!) - their stuff is bulletproof in my experience so this post isn’t meant to scare you off buying Metrum, but the Sonnet Morpheus looks like the Adagio in performance for much less money.