Metrum Musette DAC - Stream of Consciousness Discussion

Metrum Musette DAC - Stream of Consciousness Discussion

Feel free to ask for clarifications or special requests, or make suggestions! I'm open to farting around while I still have the Musette, trying it under different conditions. I guess I can move my custom 45 tube amp into the garage...

Amp: Cheap-ass Teac AL700P T-amp
Speakers: 12" Beyma Woofers, Altec 511B horns with 802A compression drivers with beat up diaphragms which were probably the originals in there for 50 years.
Preamp: Softone Model 15 Passive
Sources: Schiit Gungnir MB and POS Dell PC circa 2007
Sundry Accessories: Transparent Cable RCAs, CAT5 for speaker cable, Altec N801-8A xover with original caps, big-ass Pangea Power Cables that probably don't do anything other than stress the IEC sockets on the DACs, USB cables with ferrites at both ends.

Stock USB was used for both DACs. The Metrum uses a HiFace USB. Digital PEQ was used to correct some driver anomalies in the mids, implement a BBC dip (you kind of need it for horns), and extend the treble to 14kHz -3db before it suddenly shits by 16kHz.

OK. Where to start? The Musette represents a substantial upgrade over the similarly priced Quad of Metrum's earlier generation DAC. Tonal balance is better. It's not so darn laid back. Timbre and extension at both ends are better: the Musette is no longer colored to be only a vocal specialist like the Quad. Resolution has improved, but then again the Quad was absolutely incompetent in terms of microdetail and space.

Before taking a serious listen, be sure to leave it on at least 24 hours. The Musette when cold was thin sounding. Not in terms of lack of warmth. But in lack of body. You know, that tactile sense of body. Like even when I pick my nose, I still hear a sense of body when my fingers rub the inside of my nostrils and nose hairs. The stuff that electrostatic technology can't pull off. The warmth is there, but the lack of body makes voices such as Louis Armstrong's or Ella Fitzgerald's sound thin. The warmth of Musette and the thin vocals (or other instruments in the vocal range) make for a rather incongruous sound. The good thing is that his odd characteristic goes away after 24 hours of leaving it on. Also, the Musette has strong bit of congestion when cold. This mostly goes away.

Of course everything is relative. Even after 24 hours, the Musette still lacks body compared to the Gungnir Multibit, but it's nothing glaring. Just a bit surprising because NOS R2R DACs have supposed to have this body or tonal density. But nope. The Gungnir Multibit wins in this category. But in a way, the Musette does have this "NOS" density with its warmth. However, I'm not sure I can actually call this warmth. It's more like a slight bit of congestion or veil. It's not annoying by any means, and it does work.

Macrodynamics are quite good. Almost matching Gungnir Multibit. When cold, the Musette is soft. But after 24 hours, it seems to hitting full stride here. The biggest difference in macrodynamic rendering is space. The Moffat DACs always have this sense of sound from instruments, especially bass instruments, propagating from their positions on the stage and moving toward us. Kind of like a wavefront were the source can be localized. Think of Star Trek The Undiscovered County and how the Praxis explosion / ring impacts the Enterprise. It's less the impact, but more knowing where it came from and expecting it to hit you. (Like that song about waiting for that earthquake to hit from the Pixies). The Yggdrasil and Theta Gen V are the best at this. The Gungnir Multibit retains a good bit of this effect.

The Musette stage is 2D and rather flat. The stage is not horribly flat like that POS Chinese Sabre DAC's stage (Which DAC was that again? It was very popular on HF because one of the "pro" reviewers said it was awesomesauce). There's still some depth to the Musette's soundstage, but not nearly as much as with Gungnir Multibit, which is like up, down, the wall behind, the wall in front, the ceiling up top, the floor, with layers and layers of depth centimeter by centimeter. So in this regard, the Musette totally sucks (the Musette stage also seems fairly upfront like the Gungnir Multibit / Yggdrasil). BTW, I use speakers for evaluating soundstage. Your experiences with headphones may be dramatically different from mine.

Finally, there still isn't much plankton. I don't think microdetail is the point of the Musette, but the lack of plankton is slightly bothersome considering that entry level AKM DAC in 2016 seems to render plankton quite well. Microdynamics aren't too shabby. The Musette makes very good use of what it has available. But again the lack of micro capability doesn't allow the Musette to full advantage of it. Still, the Gungnir Multibit is so far superior in this aspect, at least in terms of being able to sudden small contrast changes. The kind of stuff that makes the hairs on my back stand up when I hear Louis and Ella sing together.

BTW, f**k NOS. NOS always seems to stage like shit, unless you pay $12,000. NOS is like a gravitational sonic black hole. You get density all right. I guess it probably doesn't matter much for headphones.

 

Tonally I did not feel the Gungnir Multibit or Musette DACs were very far apart. But I didn't hear anything from the Musette that the Gungnir Multibit did not do better. I can see some people preferring the density / warmth / congestion (only slightly more), but I am not one of them. The Gungnir Multibit had also been baking for a day, but it's well used. One thing I've noticed is that Gungnir Multibit requires less on-time to reach optimal performance over extended use.

It's not a bad DAC. In fact, it's quite good. So much better than the Quad. The problem is that the Gungnir Multibit is so good / super high value proposition. But we should expect no less from a Golden Schlong winner. I can see the AGD PCM1704 or even better yet, the vintage UltraAnalog based stuff as more viable alternatives to Gungnir Multibit because they do sound so much different with the more romantic sounding bass and more fluidity, etc.

 

I am very familiar with the M7 on NOS mode. It's kind of neat.

 

I think Marv is pretty spot on with this. Even though I prefer non-oversampling DACs in general, I would probably still take the Gungnir Multibit over the Musette. In fact, I'm not sure any non-oversampling DAC exists near its price point that is totally competitive. It's a good DAC, the Musette, but it has too many shortcomings.

What I can say is the fancier, paralleled-DAC-moduled, forward correcting DACs in the Metrum line, i.e. Pavane and probably Menuet (I say probably since I haven't heard it, but can guess its performance), are a big step up from what I heard on the Musette. The Musette alone is a big step up from the previous gen Metrums, even compared to the Hex in most ways (not necessarily all), but it's sonically stripped down compared to its bigger brothers/sisters.

But, still...the issue is the Gungnir Multibit at its price point. Yeah, Yggdrasil is great and all, and I find the Pavane at least to be a worthy competitor to the Yggdrasil (Menuet should be very close too and at a more reasonable price), but that damn Gungnir Multibit at that damn price point...

For those on the fence, I would encourage you to give it a shot regardless if interested. No better time than with a loaner! There are some unique attributes about non-oversampling that I think will always "best" oversampling in my mind (some will disagree with me here), and vice versa. I've talked at length about that before and won't do it here. Historically non-oversampling DACs have had to deal with too many other tradeoffs sonically to be competitive with the best overampling DACs in a holistic manner, but there are some heavy hitters on the market that are starting to blur that line. The majority of folks will still prefer oversampling, but sometimes you hear something, like non-oversampling, and uncover a hidden preference.

 

OK. where does the loaner start? East Coast, West Coast, Midwest, South?

 

People on the list are mostly on the WC, so let's start there.

Try @Wfojas or @uncola first.

 

The Pavane and Spring, I'd guess Menuet too, are both much better than the Musette, IMO. If you are not familiar with non-oversampling, however, I tend to recommend the safer option of the Gungnir Multibit.

 

Hahaha. We'll be taking offers on it after the loaner is complete.