Whilst one could fight with the perception that Goldmund seem to believe their DSP can fix anything, it's far harder to argue with their results. Goldmund speakers don't go after hard cones and domes to ride the diamond, beryllium and ceramic fashion. They prefer high-quality more 'vintage' Scanspeak-level cellulose and cloth. They sound warm, settled and very dynamic, not hyper resolved, nervous and edgy. The INT inherits some of that aesthetic especially when matched with 'similar' speakers. That it prioritizes digital inputs too borrows from Goldmund's current focus.


Obviously it can't be a Krell-type power-doubling weight lifter—I actually don't own amp-eating speakers to chronicle such defeat—but hoping for that in this package is back to silliness. The proper thing to say is that it's got plenty of power for the types of normal speakers reasonable people would buy and match. It also eliminates the constant fret work over the endlessly shifty DAC scene. Being 384kHz compliant with DSD128, it's all set for quite the foreseeable future. At left, you see how the INT appears to your computer. And yes, you're soundly locked in. So what? You're also liberated from paying that scene any more heed or deflationary coin. Sure, purists will get hung up on the analog input's conversion to digital. They imagine that the PGA chip of Job's preamp would have been better. Then why didn't Goldmund steal it from there ready-made—easier for them—instead of bothering with a different circuit? Just because the analog input exhibits a fine veil compared to the digital sockets does not imply that a pot or chip-based resistor ladder wouldn't throw a far coarser veil over all the inputs. Often superior solutions aren't actually flawless. They just suffer fewer flaws than the lesser solutions they trump. In the end, how much better do you imagine the Goldmund Metis 7 will be, costing seven times as much but looking virtually identical inside, to warrant that one overlook the Job INT? Case closed. Award time.