## Metrum Acoustics Adagio - The Flagship DAC with Integrated Volume Control
**Connect This Digital Pre-Amplifier Directly to Your Power Amplifiers or Active Speakers. Volume Control Done Right by Steering the DC Voltage of the R2R Ladders.**
We were aware that our flagship DAC, the [Pavane](/product/pavane), is hard to beat. Adding a neutral volume control out of the signal path further improves performance and user experience.
### The Purity of Direct Volume Control
Experiments on the [Pavane](/product/pavane) were done and we found that the best sound was coming directly from our proprietary DAC modules. Adding a potentiometer and buffer, no matter how superbly implemented, would result in audible differences. Fortunately, our R2R ladder DAC modules permit us to control the analog output voltage by changing its reference voltage.
To fully integrate volume control into the Adagio, dedicated DAC boards were designed to get the best regulation possible. The result is pure analog attenuation without ever touching the music signal itself.
### Technology Derived from the Pavane
Like in the Metrum [Pavane](/product/pavane), proprietary forward correction techniques are used to drive both mono DAC boards. The result of this process is low noise and an extremely high linearity, right down to -135 dB, which gives the Adagio a realistic 24 bit dynamic range; information from the most delicate lowest bits is extracted.
The Adagio is a step forward as an analog pre-amplifier can be omitted.
### Power Supply Architecture
Adagio, like the [Pavane](/product/pavane), has separate oversized toroidal power supplies for analog left, analog right and digital circuitry, ensuring that digital noise can't creep into the analog parts. Dividing the analog supplies results in better channel separation.
Adagio uses larger and higher voltage transformers than [Pavane](/product/pavane) for the analog circuitry, in effect also lowering the impedance of the power supply, while lowering noise and increasing linearity.
### The Listening Experience
The result is that the Adagio has weight and pace; transients are effortlessly projected into the listening space. It is musical, honors the non-oversampling (NOS) principle and simultaneously incorporates the technological progressions that have been made over the years.
A solid aluminium IR remote control with 4 buttons completes the listening experience.