Metronome DSC Streaming DAC and Digital Linestage

By: Alan Taffel

How ironic it is that one of the paramount aspects of good sound is silence. Yet there it is. Even a subtly noisy background can obscure sonic details, truncatedecays, diminish dynamic range, and subconsciously distract the listener from the music. Another type of noise, the kind that isn’t in the background but rather gloms on to individual notes or instruments, ruins the purity of those sources and taints the illusion of being in the presence of live performers. My ruminations on noise began just moments after an initial listen to the Metronome DSC streaming DAC and digital linestage. In that session, the absence of noise was overwhelming. I knew immediately that this was the least noisy digital component I’d ever encountered.

The DSC’s lack of detrimental noise is no accident. Indeed, banishing noise was one of Metronome’s design priorities. The company made the chassis uncommonly thick and heavy, even by high-end standards, and built it out of solid aluminum to shield the DSC’s gu…