Merrill Audio ELEMENT 118 on Tour
Typical no information review. No direct comparisons to other amps in its price range. Just a vague mention of Dartzeel.......and which Dart is he talking about? This is what is wrong with high end audio....It is all a big infomercial. When is a magazine going to review all the "touted best' amps in a price catagory? Imagine getting in 10 different amps.....burning them all in for a month and then A/Bing on several systems......Now, we would have some information. Of course, that magazine would go out of business doing that.....as all the losers would stop advertising....not to mention the crying of those who own products that just got put at the bottom of the list. I am sure the Merrill is a great amp......but how good we will not know until many, many people have A/Bed versus the natural competition.....and by the time they do that there will be more products out to A/B with. Never ending story of spending big money and then having to sell it when the next thing comes out. It is good to be wealthy and unattached to your money.....he he. What if a company comes out with an Class D amp for $5K that is as good (which will probably happen within a couple of years).......are you going to cry? There is no reason why a great amp should cost more than a few thousand dollars. Class D is not expensive. GaNs are only slightly more expensive than Mosfets.....you could raise the product $100 to compensate. There are reviews posted by those that owned the Merrill Veritas and compared with the new Merrills. They think the new (twice as expensive) amps are better. However, there is a review of the $5K Van Alstine mono balanced amps that were also A/Bed with the Veritas.......He said they were way better....in fact, his words seem more bold than the other reviews. So, is a stock $5K Van Alstine amp in the same league with the new Merrills? For certain, the Van Alstine amps are not classy looking at all......but you could have someone make you sexy faceplates for very little if you have to have it classy. http://www.audiophilia.com/reviews/2018/10/13/audio-by-van-alstine-dva-set-600-mono-block-amplifier For sure, we are in a very exciting time. Audio has never been so good.....but how much do we need to spend? When new technology is first put out you pay through the nose. Remember the first basic calculator?...at $500 or whatever.....now they cost a $1. Remember the first 1 gig memory cards for your camera? $800!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We don't know how many days we have left in this body.....so spend your money any way you like and enjoy the ride. This very moment is magical....that is for sure. "He who dies with the most toys wins".......does not bring happiness. Happiness is embracing this very moment. I was in ecstasy as a teenager listening to my AM radio in my 51 Chevy. |
I am not suggesting that you can just throw some GaNs in any old class D module and get great sound. Merrill has a super power supply, has a custom zero feedback circuit, has copper plates inside, is damped, uses great jacks, etc. However, the GaNs themselves are not expensive. What I am saying is that we will have competition real soon from other way less expensive class D amps and maybe even the Van Alstine class AB amps now. By the way, if you tweaked the Van Alstine amps they would sound way, way better. He is no tweak. Just look at the crappy jacks, undamped heatsinks, fuses in line with the speakers, ordinary parts, etc. Putzy has already released his new module.....check out Purifi-audio.com. Suppose to be sonically way better than the NC1200 used in the Veritas. There will be $3K? amps available in a few months using these modules. No, they do not use GaNs nor are they zero feedback.....but I bet they will be really great. Will they be as good as Merrill? We won't know till a few manufacturers make amps the them and people compare.....months down the road. They certainly will be way, way less expensive......$3K versus $15K or more. There will be other manufactures using GaNs soon as well. Nuprime is working with GaNs right now. |
Probably Merrill was just stating the factory spec for the NC1200 module whereas he is actually measuring? his 116......A lot of "factory specs" never are realized in real life. Maybe Merrill will chime in here. These specs mean very little in terms of listening. You could have a no oversampling DAC with pretty bad signal to noise ratio that sounds way more transparent than some DAC with tons of filtering (digital and analog). We know the 116 is better than Veritas (verified by many). But is it better than the $5000 mono Van Alstine amps that clobbered the Veritas? How about the Cherry Megachino II amps? How about the Nuprime biggies, the NC1200 amps from Nord, my $2500 dual mono tweaked to the max IceEdge amps?......not to mention tons of other class A and A/B amps (transistor and tube). In the above review what amps do width, depth and decay better? He only rated the 116 4 or 4.5 notes on these categories. Another fine review telling us nothing. Wouldn't you love it if some reviewer got the "reputed best" 20 amps under $25,000 and tested them all at the same time. Burning them all in for a month. Testing them on different feet and with different power cords and on several systems. Then we will know something. We know nothing!!!!!! High end audio is just a bunch of illusions.....he he. Buy whatever makes you happy, just don't compare it to anything else.....you might not like what you paid big bucks for. |
What you have the equipment mounted on makes all the difference in the world. All footers change the sound.....all platforms change the sound....all things under the platform change the sound. Almost all stock footers can be improved by using aftermarket ones. If I were A/Bing expensive amps like above I would have at least a half dozen different footers and platforms to play with (and of course, power cords). Also, mass loading on top of the amp or whatever can be amazing. You can use lead shot, damped weights, etc. Lighter equipment generally needs more mass loading. You must mount every amp in the same position and with the same feet to know the difference in the amps and then tweak each one for best sound with different feet/loading etc. Yes, it takes time but is well worth it. Just did a listening test the other day and the person who owned the system told me the difference between two different footers under the amp was "the difference between a sale or not"..........This guy had his speaker wires on the floor and when we put them up in the air the sound was incredibly better. I hope you guys have all your cables off the floor.....otherwise you are not hearing what a real soundstage is like. |
The new Totaldac amps would be a nice A/B with the 118s. They are about the same price ($40K per pair for balanced inputs only, single stereo amp is $20K and rca input only). Zero feedback tube/solid state versus zero feedback fast GAN. I would bet the Totaldac pair would be more musical.....but as dynamic, clear and fast? Never know till you try. So far, everyone who has heard the Totaldac amp is raving. http://www.totaldac.com/amp-1-en.htm What is for sure is that class D has finally arrived. The Merrill may not be perfect but it is really good. There will be cheaper class d amps in the future that will be better.....that, I have no doubt. There is really very little inside a Class D amp that would warrant such money. You are paying for being the first and the sexy box and packaging. I am not saying that what is on the inside is junk.....just saying you could put the same insides in less sexy boxes and sell them direct for about one quarter the price......or way less. Can someone please open the Merrill amps and take a pic so we can see all the stuff in there? You notice, there are no pics anywhere, at this point. I predict that within a few years (or sooner) you will see class D amps sounding as good or better for $5K or less......maybe highly modded Purifi modules....or whatever. Class D should not be expensive. Once you get rid of monster heatsinks, banks of output transistors and super large linear transformers (none of these things inside a Merrill), then the amps are way smaller, lighter and less expensive. GAN transistors are not expensive and because they are so efficient you only need very few of them and even less heatsinking than mosfets. The revolution has begun. Remember, the first calculator was hundreds of dollars....now they give them away. Here is a link to mono GAN amps that will be available for $1K the pair....I am sure they are not in the league of the Merrill amps...but this is just the beginning. https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bosc-hifi-monoblock-class-d-amp/coming_soon |
Another amp in this price range to A/B with the Merrill is the new Totaldac AMP-1....($20K for single rca input amp and $40K for XLR mono blocks). Naturally the XLR mono blocks would be the ONLY way to go. I am pretty sure the zero feedback tube/solid state output Totaldac would be more rich sounding but as detailed? He developed the amp using the Magico M6 and high sensitivity horns. Nothing but raves, so far. http://www.totaldac.com/amp-1-en.htm Some have said the Audionet Heisenberg amps (over $100K) are the best solid state amps they have heard. Of course, the monster DAgostino amps are killer....back and wallet killers for sure!. Then you have the big latest mono Sim Audio, Classe, FM Acoustics, VAC tube amps, Hegel Reference, etc, etc. If an amp has a fuse or many fuses then they must all be upgraded to super fuses or the results will be not right. Also, if you have a solid state amp that has heatsinks and you do not dampen the heatsinks (easy to do)....then you are hearing the ringing of the heatsinks. If you run your fingernail along the heatsinks and it "zings".....then you are adding that sound to the output......very important to get rid of that ringing. From pics I can see the Soulution and the CH precision both have ringing heatsinks (bad for sound). They would sound much more natural with heatsinks damped.... Totaldac amp has lots of ringing heatsinks. |
