Experience with Metrum Octave DAC

It sounds great with a Squeezebox without any re-clocking. I use optical out of my SB Touch, sounds great. I do use a reclocker out of my Mac Mini into it. The Octave does need a couple says burn in to sound its best. I was initially a little underwhelmed coming from a maxed out Naim dac, but after a couple days I am happy.

Dbarger, Have you compared the optical vs the coax? Also do you use the stock power cord or an after market cord?

Ronrags,

I also have a SB Touch and I'm looking into a DAC to pair with it, so your comments are of interest to me. You mentioned you were underwhelmed with Touch+W4S DAC1 and by Touch+Benchmark. Underwhelmed compared to Touch only?

Have you tried the Soundcheck Toolbox 3 on the Touch? I have and I'm happy, and suspect the improvements would be more noticeable with an external DAC.

BTW, if going down the optical route, make sure it's a glass and not plastic "cable". There was a thread on the cable forum a while back discussing this.

Lewinski, I was a little disappointed with both DACs by comparing them to the original cd using the Oppo 95. I was expecting them to sound better than the original cd. I found the Oppo less grainy and a little more detailed. I did the comparisons with my brother and he agreed. But both DACs sounded better than the Touch only.

I just read an interesting article concerning ripping cds using the db power software. I didn't realize that the default setting for flac is partially compressed and there is a sound difference between the non-compressed setting. I plan to re-rip some files and compare to the previous ripped files. I will also rip into a wav file and compare them all.

In the thread I started "Looking for a DAC for the SB Touch", I narrowed my choices between the Octave and the Burson DA-160. I'm more concerned about sounding smooth than the last bit of detail.

Ronrags, no, I haven't obsessed over the inputs. Both sound great, and I have no way to re-clock the optical anyway.
I use a less loss on the dac, and a upgraded linear power supply on the touch.