Experience with Metrum Octave DAC

MIGs are Synergistic Research's vibration control devices. They are stainless steel hollow half spheres. They have a round side and a flat one and the combination you use can sound quite different. I have used a fair variety of different devices of this type and , FOR MY EARS, these are the best I have used and I have a set under all my gear. But absolutely every one I have used is better than the stock rubber feet that come with most units. I recently had lunch with an engineer friend,while we were eating he made fun of vibration devices as snake oil. But afterward when we went to another friends house and I put a set of Ceraballs under his turntable he heard the difference immediately.

After a five week wait, a week of continues play, and running Pure Music, this is a huge improvement over the Squeezeboxes analog outs.

Received mine about a week ago as well, really love the way it sounds even with a bare Squeezebox Touch. Although it has been suggested that re-clocking and upsampling is required to get ideal results I'm not sure that I'll bother going any further as everything is working just fine as is.

The one thing I will say is that putting the Octave in line produced one of the most pronounced and noticeable differences that I have heard from a digital upgrade(Benchmark->Lavry->Audiolab). Better bass, better tone and rock solid in terms of placement of instruments.

We'll see what happens over time but so far it appears to be a keeper. I'll try and report back after putting some more hours on it...

I've been playing with my Metrum Octave DAC for the past 4 weeks, and I have to say, that it sounds spectacular. Super transparent, fast, detailed, smooth, with excellent front to back layering and soundstaging in general. It is indeed a game changing product.

No, it is not better than my uber-expensive dCS Scarlatti, which is still smoother and has even better resolution, but is not that far behind.

This DAC could sell for $5k and (fit and finish aside) could still represent a good value for money.

Mjm6 - You asked about jitter boxes (re-clockers) used with the Octave. You might check out the new Synchro-mesh re-clocker from Empirical Audio ($600), which is probably much better than the dated and cheaper Monarchy DIP. I almost purchased the Synchro-mesh but ended up buying a used Wyred4Sound modified Sonos instead, cleaning up the jitter at the source instead of externally with a re-clocker. In my system, going from a standard Sonos to W4S Sonos into a otherwise good dac (Rega) made a world of difference. IMO, jitter must be minimized at the source or with a re-clocker to make recorded music sound real. Most affordable dacs, including the Metrum Octave, can only do so much with jittery sources like the Sonos.