Metrum has finalised the newest member to its line-up of NOS DACs: the Menuet. In order to improve upon the mid range Hex they stopped looking towards to the “secret industrial chip”, and implemented the Transient technology found in the flagship Pavane converter. The Menuet is designed for the same basic chassis as the Hex, but to avoid internal vibration the electronics are built on a well damped sub chassis .
The Menuet uses four of the Transient R2R ladder modules found in the Pavane. These modules can handle extremely high sample rates but are limited to current industry standards which has its maximum (384kHz) on the USB input. Like the Pavane, digital data will be split over two 12 bit clusters. Each DAC cluster processes a portion of the data in the most linear region of the chip and as a result a full 24 bit range is achieved in the analog domain. Despite the single board design, channel separation is close to a dual mono layout. This contributes to the flawless positioning of instruments. The result of this process is a extremely fast and accurate behavior that brings the listening experience to a higher level.
The price has been finalized at €2,730 (ex.VAT). Orders that are placed and paid before 29th of February 2016 will have a special introductory price of €2450 (ex. VAT). The Menuet will be delivered at the end of February 2016.
Specifications
Working principle: Non oversampling DAC
Average power consumption: 10 Watts. Standby 1 Watt
Digital inputs: 2x S/PDIF coaxial. Max sampling rate 192kHz, 1x AES/EBU. Max sampling rate 192kHz
1x Optical Toslink. Max. sampling rate 96 kHz
1x USB Max. sampling rate 384 kHz
Analogue outputs: RCA 2 Volts RMS , XLR 4 Volts
Channel separation: RMS 120dB (20-10kHz), 100dB (15kHz-20 kHz)
Total harmonic Distortion: 0.007%
Dimensions: WxHxD 330 x 85 x 330 mm
Weight: 6 kg