Topic: Metrum Acoustics Hex DAC Measurements (Read 6803 times)

firev1 · « **Reply #10 on:** January 30, 2014, 02:40:52 PM »

Hanns, check your bit depth settings on ARTA or something, your 24 bit test should not show 16 bit quantization steps. It should be a smooth sine wave.

For such test, I usually have generator laptop with the ARTA generated files and a recording side with another laptop or 2 windows of ARTA in order to keep the ADC in 24/96 mode while the DAC puts out the 16 bit tests.

Or is it because its a NOS which is why there is some quantisation error???

Hands · « **Reply #11 on:** January 30, 2014, 03:23:04 PM »

Bit depth settings should be good, but ASIO does not let me set those in ARTA. Perhaps I could try WDM, which does let me select, to see if there's any difference. I could try setting the ADC at 24-bit while the DAC is at 16-bit. I matched everything in those particular tests.

If I had to guess, it could be that it's a NOS DAC (they output a stepped sine wave), and the DAC chips themselves might not be true 24-bit. (IIRC, I read somewhere the Metrums really only resolve to 18 or maybe 20 bits?) Either way, I can always go back and re-do them.

firev1 · « **Reply #12 on:** January 30, 2014, 04:12:16 PM »

Oh I see, most interesting, yes for these test, set the ADC always at 24 bit as I find that it adds its own noise into the measurements as well.

OJneg · « **Reply #13 on:** January 30, 2014, 05:53:44 PM »

Great work hans

Is the performance increase from 16/48 to 24/96 significant to your ears?

MuppetFace · « **Reply #14 on:** January 30, 2014, 11:14:44 PM »

I had a chance to hear the Hex not too long ago. It's definitely laid back and stereotypically analog-sounding. I really liked it FWIW.

Really curious to hear it (and see how it measures) compared to the Lampizator stuff.

ericfarrell85 · « **Reply #15 on:** January 31, 2014, 03:09:58 AM »

What did you think of the soundstage Muppet? When I had the Hex for a couple of days I actually found it quite imemorable. There was little of the 3D soundstage of the Lampi and it couldn't match the heft and solidity of the Lampi either. Detail wise it resolved about as well as the PWD + bridge, which was impressive. The treble was also less smooth and grainier than I expected for all the talk of an "analog like" presentation. I just felt it was kind of meh for the price, though a pleasant enough unit. I chose both my Lampi and Master 7 over it without much heartache. Also. the Audiophileo didn't do much for it, which I would chalk up to a pretty good USB section.

Hands · « **Reply #16 on:** January 31, 2014, 07:18:29 AM »

Quote from: OJneg on January 30, 2014, 05:53:44 PM

Is the performance increase from 16/48 to 24/96 significant to your ears?

The difference can be noticeable, but perhaps not as much as you'd think. I'd say I do about 50/50 listening with and without upsampling in JRMC. The Hex will do up to 192KHz for the sampling rate, so I run 176/192 for software upsampling. I'd measure for that if my ADC supported it, but I'm guessing it would give me a fairly well-extended treble response with just a tiny bit of roll-off. Picking your own software upsampling method can be fun or interesting as well.

The way I hear it (and I could be wrong), software upsampling slightly alleviates some of the common complaints you get with NOS DACs while still preserving its characteristic traits. If you don't like the NOS sound with red book, the difference is likely not large enough to change your mind. In that regard, I would find it hard to label the differences as "significant," but I could see it being just enough to sway the opinion of a select few on the fence (not all). Frequency response and other measurements do allow us to at least somewhat quantify the benefits upsampling can offer.

BTW, I've attached a comparison shot of the Hex vs Quad at 16/48. I'm leaving out the other measurements because they were done on different setups (FR should still be good to compare, though). Differences look smaller than at 96KHz sampling rate, but there's still around a 0.4dB difference at 20KHz.

Even with the Hex's improvements over the Quad, and even if you use software upsampling, I still think it's a fairly niche product. For the minimum price of $2500 for the base Hex model (no USB input, no upgrade output transformers), which is what I'm using, I'm guessing most others can probably find options that better suit their tastes and needs (perhaps something like the M7?). I have to admit that I'm happier with the Hex than I had originally anticipated, and I think many others would find a lot to like about it. It works really well for me, but it's not a purchase you should jump into blindly. I just happened to find something particularly pleasing about the Metrum sound, but I do have particular tastes that others might not share.

Hands · « **Reply #17 on:** February 01, 2014, 02:23:57 PM »

These are inspired by what Ultrabike tested with the Quad. I took a 1-minute sample of a track I regularly listen to (16/44.1, WAV copy of Opeth's "Ghost of Perdition") and did an exp. average in the spectrum analyzer over the entire sample. These three attached pictures show playback through JRiver Media Center without any software upsampling, with upsampling at 96KHz, and with upsampling at 192KHz. This is more just to show that software upsampling does have at least some sort of effect on music playback, and you can gather some info about the type of upsampling JRMC uses based on these shots.

DAC was at 24/192, ADC at 24/96. Verified that setting DAC itself to 16/44.1 did not change the look of the spectrum graph.

Hands · « **Reply #18 on:** February 01, 2014, 02:52:22 PM »

Here are the results of a test where I generated a 16/48 test file in RightMark and used JRiver Media Center for playback. I also tried with 96KHz and 192KHz software upsampling in JRMC, and you can see how that compares below. The idea was to simulate what software upsampling might do for music playback (close to red book) on a NOS DAC. Note that the DAC was set to 16/192 and the ADC at 24/96 for all of these, RightMark set to 16/48 for evaluation.

1. Frequency response comparison
2. Noise
3. Dynamic Range
4. THD
5. IMD
6. Crosstalk
7. Swept IMD and a numerical overview of the results (this was not auto-generated with the HTML report)

MuppetFace · « **Reply #19 on:** February 01, 2014, 03:12:03 PM »

Quote from: ericfarrell85 on January 31, 2014, 03:09:58 AM

What did you think of the soundstage Muppet?

First off I should say that [with a few exceptions] the differences between high-end DACs are usually subtle to me.

That being said, I felt the Hex actually did a good job conveying a sense of space. What stood out in particular was how recording dependent it was compared to the other DACs; the strength of the Hex seemed to lie in quite faithfully reproducing the recording environment. Which can be a blessing or curse.

It's definitely NOT a DAC with a "wow factor" from what I can tell. It makes absolutely no effort to try and win you over.

The Reimyo was much prettier-sounding---artificially so, but executed with finesse---almost like the DAC equivalent of the Sennheiser Orpheus. It was like a courtesan who wanted to make sure you were enjoying yourself.

Author Topic: Metrum Acoustics Hex DAC Measurements (Read 6803 times)

firev1

Re: Metrum Acoustics Hex DAC Measurements

Hands

Re: Metrum Acoustics Hex DAC Measurements

firev1

Re: Metrum Acoustics Hex DAC Measurements

OJneg

Re: Metrum Acoustics Hex DAC Measurements

MuppetFace

Re: Metrum Acoustics Hex DAC Measurements

ericfarrell85

Re: Metrum Acoustics Hex DAC Measurements

Hands

Re: Metrum Acoustics Hex DAC Measurements

Hands

Metrum Hex - Music Playback + Upsampling Spectrum

Hands

Metrum Hex - RightMark 16/48 | JRiver MC Upsampling Tests

MuppetFace

Re: Metrum Acoustics Hex DAC Measurements

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Author Topic: Metrum Acoustics Hex DAC Measurements (Read 6803 times)