Looking for a DAC that has..

I think you're making some good moves and are heading in the right direction. I was intrigued by the new Metrum DAC (the HEX) myself, but some guy on the whatsbestforum is suggesting they are probably using a 16 bit DAC chip (TI DAC8580) which is obviously an issue if you do high rez (it will chop off 8 bits from 96/24 material). Not officially confirmed (Metrum does not disclose what DAC chip they use), but a red flag nonetheless.

"It seems on this forum a lot of people like Metrum Octave or Eastern Electric dac. What would be your recommendation for use with Synchro-mesh+AppleTV? Will I be able to hear improvement over ECD-1 dac?"

Yes, the Metrum or even a W4S DAC2 will be an improvement over the ECD-1. The D/A module in it is dated.

Steve N.
Empirical Audio

Hi Edorr, a lot of thanks to you and Steve. If we hadn't had this thread, I'm not sure how much time and money I would waste more. Can't wait for the Synchro-mesh and during the meantime I'm thinking of acquiring a dac for comparison with my ECD-1 dac.

Regarding Metrum Octave, I read somewhere it uses 4 chips for analog conversion. Two 16-bit DAC equals to a single 32-bit DAC, no? Total of 4 chips for 2 channels?

Or someone with Octave can easily detect in their listening while playing 24/96 material? Chopping off 8 bits seems like a lot.

For me, the Synchro-Mesh provides significant improvements in sound quality being placed between a Bolder modded Logitech Touch and an Eastern Electric DAC2 with DEXA discrete opamps. I've also used an OPPO BDP-95 at the front end of the chain with equally impressive results.

Prior to the Synchro-Mesh arrival, I used the Touch for casual listening owing to its convenience and struggled with the DLNA interface on the BDP-95 for when I wanted better sound quality.

Soundstage, detail and clarity are at all time highs with this current system iteration and I find myself spending more time in my listening chair and less at the keyboard.

I've had my Synchro-Mesh since the end of July and feel that you may well be better off with it and a lesser DAC than with a much more expensive DAC by itself. You really develop a sense for what the Synchro-Mesh does when you listen with it engaged for a while then turn it off.

Correction: Octave uses total of 8 "industrial" dac chips, 4 per channel. I couldn't find anywhere on the net what those dac are. It seems Metrum really goes out of their way to protect this. The only info I could find is they aren't originally made for audio use but for other high speed real world applications such as data collection.