Made by
ALL Engineering
Introduction
With the goal of creating a very affordable, yet superior DAC in mind the designers of
Metrum Acoustics have developed a new DAC, the ONYX By Metrum Acoustics.
It was an unprecedented challenge, which was eventually solved by using an entirely new
chip, which has been exclusively developed by Metrum Acoustics and was first used in the
PAVANE.
The parallel driven R2R ladder networks as used in the four DAC modules performs ,
especially when combined with our FPGA-driven “forward correction module”, on a higher
level. This module splits up the audio samples for each channel into new separate data
streams. Each dac cluster processes a portion of the data in the most linear region of the dac
chips. The result of this process is an extremely high linearity, right down to -145 dB, which
gives the ONYX a realistic 24 bit dynamic range. Due to the new motherboard design an
extremely high channel separation of 120 dB is realized over the entire frequency range. This
contributes to the flawless positioning of instruments.
In short, the ONYX is a DAC that has taken all the lessons and experiences that her designer
has learned over the years, and combined them in an ambitious DAC that can fit in every
system. It is musical, honors the Non-oversampling principle while simultaneously
incorporating the technological progress that has been made over the years.
Remark
The Onyx will reach its maximum performance after a three to four weeks
of intensive use!
