Metrum Acoustics Amethyst NOS DAC 
 
Entry level NOS DAC using 1 DACTWO transient chip per channel.
Analogue volume control with amplification for headphones!
 
The Amethyst is the entry model NOS DAC with volume control using Metrum's praised forward correction technology. As a result music will be more exiting as details on very low levels will be audible. 
 
The Amethyst can meet the best systems today in terms of sound quality as it borrows all the good things from their top models. In addition they have implemented a powerful headphone amplifier. 
 
The Amethyst is using two Transient R2R ladder DACTWO chips. The result of this process is an extremely fast and accurate behavior and brings listening experience on a much higher level. Despite the fact that both DACTWO chips are built on the same board an extremely high channel separation of 110 dB is realized. This contributes to flawless positioning of instruments.
 
The headphone amplifier will drive impedance down to 16 Ohms and gets its power from a powerful 30VA power supply. When the Amethyst is used as a DAC this power will be available for the DAC only. Even though the Amethyst is a small ‘mini’ integrated design, incorporating both Digital and Analogue processing. This together with an extremely low level noise floor of -145dB @ 2V RMS, indicates how this fine detail retrieval is made possible. 
 
The Amethyst can also be used as a stand-alone DAC. Fixed level output is available, direct from the DACTWO chips as no output stage is necessary. Headphone volume control is designed to power low impedance models down to 16 Ohms. When headphones are connected, volume control becomes active and when disconnected, the Analogue outputs become active with volume control muted.