Ima tweakin boss and it’s digital!
I’ve read with great amusement recently on various audio forums contributors whinging that digital audio is taking the fun out of HiFi because the opportunities to tweak are being eroded; obviously don’t know shit about digital audio then, I say.
Due to some rather extreme storms here we get regular power cuts, fried routers and more importantly, sever voltage fluctuations; one of which managed to fry my admittedly less than British Standards power arrangements to my Dacs. Oh well…….
On the bright side, I got myself a second hand Metric Halo Lio-8 and while I’m learning how to use it (Lodsa opportunities to tweak yerself deaf
) I bought one of those “that can’t be any good coz the box is tiny and its got no big knobs an stuff” Halide Design DAC HD Dac thingies. 
Soooo, I’ve got both extremes. You can’t do much with the HD Dac I’ll grant you; really dull in that respect, you just plug it in and the thingie gets on with the job, can’t even mess about with the cables at either end ffs 
. Oh well, there is always hours of fun to be had at the computer end desperately trying to hear any difference between one player and another, or one MOB or another
The Metric Halo, cor, it does all sorts of stuff. If you want your system to sound like a valve and turntable based setup there are filters that do the job. Fancy trying some really long word length samples, this thing can cope. Want an easy way to measure (yep sorry, I know I swore again) your room response then this makes the job so much easier.
I really like the Halide Design HD. It isn’t quite as incisive, maybe read bright here, as the HRT Pro adequately powered but in the room I currently have my setup (solid stone/ruble walls none of which are parallel or flat, a metre drop in ceiling height from one end to the other and tiled floors) this isn’t a bad thing. I could quite happily live with it which is more than I can say about some rather more expensive Dacs I’ve heard.
As to how the Metric Halo sounds…….I don’t have a clue really, it all depends on which tweak you’ve applied 
Single spur balanced Mains. Self built music server with 3 seperate linear PSU, Intel i5, 16 GB RAM no hard drive (various Linux OS). Benchmark Dac2 HGC, single ended XLR interconnects/Belkin cable. Exposure 21RC Pre, Super 18 Power (recap & modified). Modded World Audio HD83 HP amp. Hand built Monitors with external crossovers , Volt 250 bass & ABR, Scanspeak 13M8621 Mid & Scanspeak D2905/9300 Hi. HD595 & Beyer 880 (600 ohm) cans.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
-Bertrand Russel
John.
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