What more can a company do after launching “one of the best DACs available today?” According to Metrum and two of the Ear’s reviewers their current flagship Pavane is hard to beat but at least one idea was not been tried yet. The idea of having a decent volume control that eliminates the need for a pre-amplifier, which could improve performance dramatically. However, Metrum is aware that introducing such device in the signal chain can have a negative effect.
Metrum discovered that the best sound came directly from the Transient DAC modules. They weren’t convinced by the digital approach but established that their R2R ladder DACs can be used to change volume by changing reference voltage, which meant that dedicated DAC boards had to be designed to get the best regulation possible.
Like the Pavane, “forward correction” techniques are used to drive both mono DAC boards. The result of this process is an extremely high claimed linearity, right down to -140 dB, which gives the Adagio a realistic 24-bit dynamic range. The Adagio honors the non-oversampling principle and simultaneously incorporates the technological progress that Metrum has made over the years. Recommended retail price is €6,950 and the Adagio DAC preamplifier with five inputs will be available at the end of June this year and Metrum is talking about incorporating MQA in future.