iramirez

Sold.

Ok, all the iFi stuff has sold. I am selling the DAC alone for $900. It has the optional USB input & the brushed aluminum faceplate.

Price Drop! $1150

Hello, I am selling my Metrum Octave Mk II and its ancilliary equipment. I am only doing so because I am moving to Europe for an extended period of time. The Octave is an excellent NOS DAC and I am very happy with it. It has been extensively reviewed and is very highly regarded. I am selling the iFi iUSB power and the iFi Gemini cable along with it. Both of those items are significant additions to the Octave's performance... they 'gild the lilly' via USB, so to speak. I have owned the Octave for about 8 months and I have all the original boxes. I am asking for $1250 for the entire combo, it originally cost around $1730. I have bought and sold high-end audio through Audiogon in the past. If you care to have a look my Audiogon profile is Iramirez. I prefer Paypal as a payment method above all others. Thanks for your interest, Ivan A. Ramirez

Bob, I have been listening to Audirvana since yesterday. I am very impressed. I think that it is the best of the three players tonally. I used your recommended settings and they are indeed better than the defaults. I think that Amarra soundstages with more depth, but Audirvana kills it on tone and sheer palpable presence. Thank you for the great suggestion and help. Ivan

Folks, thanks for all the suggestions and help. I have been trying out Amarra against Pure Music since they are the players that I do have. It is a little frustrating because I would like to blend them into one. The main difference between Amarra and Pure Music, at least in my system, seems to be that Amarra sound-stages with more depth and seems a quite a bit smoother on the highs. It seems more detailed and tonally sweeter. Now, this mostly applies to high resolution files. When I play normal resolution files Amarra still sound-stages better, but it sounds rather lean. Upsampling in Pure Music definitely fleshes out the sound and gives the music presence. So, barring an upsampling Amarra, I am going to continue using Pure Music as my player. I have not had a chance to test out Audirvana, yet. But, I intend to try it out over the weekend. I am hoping it manages to combine the best of both worlds... Regards, ivan

I will check all these out. I must confess that they frighten me a bit. I don't know that I have the skill and patience to work these out without crashing my computer... Cheers, Ivan

i have a licensed copy of Amarra. i tried it initially, just a couple of songs, and moved on to Pure Music right away. i stuck to Pure Music because it upsamples. Amarra won't do that. On lesser resolution files, and i have many, Pure Music easily bested Amarra. I will try Amarra again, and put more time into it. I have not compared how they play with higher resolution files. I have not tried Audirvana, but I'll take your suggestion and check it out... Thanks, Ivan

Hello, This is my first post in this forum. I have been reading through a series of your posts and it is readily apparent that there are many experienced and thoughtful computer audiophiles in this forum. I am not exactly new to computer audio, but I am by no means an expert. I am posting here because I recently purchased a Metrum Octave Mk 2 DAC. I am very pleased with the DAC, but I am not certain that I am maximizing its performance. I am using a 2012 Mac Mini as the source and utilizing iTunes and Pure Music as the software management programs for my music files. My files range from the typical iTunes purchase files, to ripped Cd files, to some high resolution files from HD Tracks. I upsample X2 unless the files are 24/192. I purchased an iFi iUSB with the Gemini cable in order to isolate my DAC from dirty computer power. I really like the Octave's NOS sound. I used to have a Peachtree iDecco, featuring that Sabre chip, and I liked it quite a bit, but the Metrum is much more detailed, revelatory, and analog in its presentation. Having said all of that, the reason I'm posting is that I'm hoping that some of you may come up with suggestions on how to further improve the sound quality of my system. I am also hoping that interacting with all you folk directly i'll learn a bit more about computer audio...