Review: Merason DAC1 Mk II

DACs are like dinner party guests: you don’t want loud and obnoxious but you also don’t want overly polite and boring.

After all, listening to music is a kind of conversation albeit one-way yet not static. I’m sure we’ve all experienced the same music differently over time because while the music hasn’t changed, we have (ideally). Whether that means we have learned more about the music, the people who made it, the time in history it was made, or simply more about life, music can grow as we do. And that is a beautiful thing.

For those of us who listen to music without doing anything else, the quality of the experience takes on added significance as compared to music as background while doing other things. I always have music playing when I’m drawing, but at some point the drawing is all I hear, so to speak. But when just listening, some gear speaks to us more directly, allowing the music to take on added significance, increased importance because in addition to matters of the mind, music also touches the heart. If you’ve read any review I’ve written, I hope it’s evident that I’m all in for the complete mind/body experience when it comes to hifi that tickles my fancy.

Back to DACs, you don’t want a DAC to be the center of attention when listening to music by calling attention to details that aren’t supposed to be that loud (and obnoxious). Things like extra sharp edges drawn around sounds, resolution over body, and speed over nuance. Thankfully, as time goes on digital has come to better resemble real life as opposed to feeling like a poor facsimile printed when the ink was running low. Still, people who say all DACs sound more or less the same haven’t listened to enough DACs and/or haven’t listened past sounds to the heart of the matter. Here’s a telltale sign—quick A/B comparisons and worse yet the insistence on blind tests are two methods of listening guaranteed to reduce music to sounds, removing the possibility of an emotional connection which is, as I said, at least half of hifi’s value.

From Merason:

Input signal processing: The DAC1 Mk II has one USB, one RCA, one Toslink and one AES input. The USB input is based on Amanero technology and ensures a low-jitter music signal thanks to two precise oscillators, which is then galvanically isolated by capacitive isolator components. The signals arriving at the other inputs are also galvanically isolated and de-jittered by means of transformers and capacitors. This guarantees that no external interference can affect the sensitive signal.

Digital-to-analog conversion: The task of digital-to-analog conversion is performed by two 1794A converter modules from Burr Brown. For a 5 dB improvement in dynamic range, each channel has its own device. The analog current signal is elaborately converted into a voltage signal in a discrete setup, which is buffered in Class A technology and routed to the output. The DAC1 Mk II is fully balanced, i.e. a total of four independent channels are implemented from the two converter modules to the output.

Power supply: Each functional unit has its own power supply, and in total there are twelve of them. Two output channels each are supplied by a separate linear supply with an oversized transformer.

I did a quick search for more information on the Burr Brown 1794A DAC chip and found this query among the results: “I have been comparing the numbers on the current DAC chips and the Burr Brown (TI) 1794A has my attention.” Which made me laugh the same way hearing about how some new vitamin supplement will change my life regardless of what else is gong on in it. Or how about this analogy—if only Picasso had used yellow, his Blue Period would have been more joyful and energetic.

The Merason DAC1 Mk II takes in a digital audio signal via Toslink, Coax S/PDIF, USB, or AES, and sends out an analog signal over RCAs or XLRs. Simple, at least on the face of it.

I let the Merason DAC1 play within a few system contexts and was fed directly by either the Barn resident Auralic ARIES G1.1 (review) or the recently reviewed Auralic ARIES G2.2 (review) over a length of AudioQuest Diamond AES cable. On its output side, the Merason DAC’s RCAs sent the converted signal over AudioQuest ThunderBird interconnects to the review sample Audionet HUMBOLDT integrated amp (more info) which drove the review Vivid GIYA G2 Series 2 speakers (more info) and when on the Barn’s B-Side, it got to play with recently reviewed Thöress EHT (review) or Barn resident Leben CS600X driving the recently reviewed Volti Rival SE (review), the review GoldenEar T66 (more info), or the Barn resident DeVore Fidelity O/96 (review). (see full system and Barn details). It also took a spin with the Bel Canto pre/power stack (review) driving the Wharfedale Dovedale (review). A full workout.

I mention all of these details because they matter. And while I’ve read comments from manufacturers about how their DACs are immune to any issues with the quality of the incoming digital audio signal, i.e. noise or jitter, I’ve never yet met a DAC that actually was. In other words, the output of every DAC I’ve reviewed, which includes 6+ years of reviewing just digital audio as Editor of AudioStream, was more or less influenced by what provided the input. A laptop, for example, should not be a part of a hifi that costs more than the laptop, in my experience and opinion.

In terms of looks, fit ’n finish, the Swiss-made Merason DAC1 is a nicely built simple box that comes in black, silver, and gold. The front panel houses a power button, little orange LEDs, one for each input and a signal ‘Lock” indicator, and a matching input selector button. The company name completes the picture.

Cowboy Sadness’ Selected Jambient Works Vol. 1 has been filling the Barn with its lovely, glitchy sadness. The band is Peter Silberman on Baritone Guitar & Synth, David Moore on Rhodes & Farfisa, and Nicholas Principe on Drums & Synth and together they create big swaths of sound, soundscapes that feel desert-sized with no boundaries within earshot. The Merason DAC1 Mk II loved Cowboy Sadness and all that space as it expertly redrew that vastness in Barn, placing me in the midst of a Jambient world order that felt dreamy and weightless. The Merason DAC1 also proved to love nuance as much as I do, hitting that lovable balance between resolution and flesh that makes the things that makes the music feel fleet of foot and fully formed. A delicate balance that isn’t a given when converting digital to analog, at least in my experience.

What’s more, the Merason DAC1 had a consistent gentle quality that came through every system pairing, a complete lack of the kind of cool overly contrasted sound that many a DAC exhibits making the experience of listening to music feel more like a sonic autopsy than a re-creation of music.

Astrid Sonne’s Great Doubt, released on Copenhagen’s Escho label last month, gets deeper the further in you go, which is among my favorite kinds of records. Sonne adds her voice and viola to detuned piano, synths, fractured beats, sampled woodwinds, cello, guitar, and saxophone with help from guests Ben Vince, Levitation Orchestra’s Emma Barnaby, Jasper Marsalis, and Alvilda Reiter Jakobsen. The Merason DAC1 Mk II also loves the distinct sounds each of these different things and people make, offering them fleshed out with a harmonic rightness that feels in full bloom. I will say I’ve heard more expensive DACs like the Barn resident totaldac d1-unity (review) puts even more flesh on music’s structures while offering even greater levels of resolution which I hope would be the case when spending roughly 50% more than the cost of the Merason.

But here’s the thing I’ve found with comparative listening, like comparing the Merason to the totaldac—the differences noted tend to fade over time especially if the thing at hand doesn’t do anything wrong. In other words, the Merason DAC1 Mk II felt in no way lacking during its 2 month+ Barn stay where it saw lots and lots of use.

“Do you wanna” follows opener “Light and heavy”, a perfect one-two setup with “Do you wanna’s” heavy drum and bass intro crashing through “Light and heavy’s” gentle foundation. And that heavy intro helped remind me that the Merason DAC1 also offers a very full figured sound, with real slam and deep, physical bass. It is in no way light weight while being deft and nimble, another delicate balance the Merason nails like a Simone Biles landing following some impossible flying twisting first-time ever feat. Music can feel that exciting, that nerve racking when all of the pieces hit their mark. Bravo!

Back at Bennington College, I had a crappy portable cassette deck in my painting studio and a handful of tapes to play in it. Chief among ‘em was Sonny Rollins Freedom Suite, one of the most beautiful records I’m aware of featuring Rollins on tenor sax along with Oscar Pettiford on bass and Max Roach on drums. A super group if ever there was one. The music that makes up Freedom Suite is folk-like in its melodic simplicity while the repetition of themes feel like spirituals. This was one of 3 or 4 tapes I would play, over and over, while painting, something I did for many hours most days so to say I know Freedom Suite inside and out is overstating the obvious. Time, timing, interplay, repetition, tone, texture and supreme musicianship are all main ingredients here and I’ll share that I prefer listening to the record over the digital because the record, the vinyl, always sounds better informed.

That said, the Merason DAC1 Mk II offered up a soul stirring rendition when paired with the Barn’s Leben CS600X and DeVore O/96 so much so that I was transported back to the 1980s in a cold Vermont studio with the smell of oil paint and turpentine in the air and the feeling that everything was waiting just around the next day, week, month, or year. Sax, bass, and drums in these people’s hands turn thirty six minutes into an endless world of possibility that still feels as fresh and unexpected as the first listen. The energy, the life contained in Freedom Suite was reproduced in form and feel by this system, with the Merason DAC1 balancing the important parts of the bits, recreating a moment in time captured in two days in1958 in the ever present. Lovely.

Over time and weeks of dedicated listening, it became evident that the Merason DAC1 Mk II’s strengths are less about good digital and more about good music making.

The Merason DAC1 Mk II turned out to be the perfect kind of guest, taking part in making music that became conversations across time and place and people and me, never once breaking the magical spell that music can cast on the careful listener. To my mind, and in my experience, the Merason DAC1 Mk II is as agile a DAC as I’ve heard when it comes to serving up a well-balanced musically satisfying whole.


Merason DAC1 Mk II
Price: $8500
Company Website: Merason
US Distributor Website: Well Pleased Audio Vida

Specifications

Output: max. 3 V RMS (balanced), max. 1.5 V RMS (unbalanced)
Frequency Response: 20 Hz to 20 kHz +/- 0.3 dB
THD+N: < 0.006 % SNR: > 120 dB
DAC: twice BurrBrown 1794A, discrete I/V stage
Power Supply: 230 V or 115V (one of them) AC / 50 to 60 Hz, 30 W.

Operation

Ambient temperature 10°C to 30°C, 50°F to 86°F
Humidity max. 80 %, non-condensing
During operation, the device heats up by approx. 20 K compared to the ambient temperature.

Input Format

44.1 kHz@16 bit, 44.1 kHz@24 bit
48 kHz@16 bit, 48 kHz@24 bit
88.2 kHz@24 bit
96 kHz@24 bit
176.4 kHz@24 bit (USB)
192 kHz@24 bit.

Dimensions

Width: 45 cm, 17.7 In
Height: 10 cm, 3.9 In
Depth: 29 cm, 11.4 In
Weight: 5.5 kg, 12 lbs