So VERY early assessment. It been powered on continuously for a week now, and overnight just firing up a random 8 hr playlist to break it in. May need 300-500 hours to settle in, but...... Wow, for the money will be tough to beat. Since it’s not roon certified yet (maybe a few weeks or a month before it’s official, fingers crossed), I’m using my old opp udp-203 as the roon renderer, and my Mac as roon core hooked up over toslink to the MA3. I had to run it like this even though roon saw it as an endpoint, can’t stream to it until it’s been certified. Not ideal but I’ll tell ya this thing is smooth. Zero digital etch, bass response is fantastic, and sounds remarkably better than my Aurender a10, which it replaced. Large scale orchestral and female vocals are spot on and have that sort or ‘rightness’ that MSB and DCS can deliver without spending gobs of money. The unit sounded a bit flat when first powered on, which was totally expected and didn’t get much better for the first few days then bam. First step function cleared. I suspect there are more to be had. I have a window of 3 hours while the family is out of the house Saturday morning, I’ll have more to report in then. |
Okay, using qobuz/tidal direct with the unit produces some fine sounds and is quite the experience. Have to use this off the shelf crappy app called M connect. Makes the UI/UX on Aurender seem like a pinnacle of good design ;-( The unit is still awaiting its roon certification so I can’t use it as intended yet. I hooked up my old oppo-203 which can become a roon ready endpoint but I have to run toslink out and to the MA3. When doing so, it all sounds kinda flat and thin if I can beat describe it. It sounds like a piano, and is recognizable but it’s far far from the real thing. So I just queued up some fat playlists in quobuz and letting it rip and sure is sweet. The Brandenburg concertos are 300 years old this week so that’s sure been in heavy rotation! |
Roon just went live with it's MA3 certification in past day or so. I've updated my settings. I am going to get some listening time this weekend with the MA3 as a decoder and render directly, removing the Oppo (and toslink thank the good lord) |
Liking what roon did for classical music and compositions,conductors, etc. LOVE what the MA3 has done to the overall playback. Best I can describe without all those stupid metaphors or sounding snooty is the thing just kinda gets out of the way. It’s rather strange. It’s got detail, gobs, but subtlety is there too. No ringing, no fatigue. It’s rather laid back but still quite detailed. I’d put it up against the Bartok any day of the week. I stumbled across a qobuz playlist by Optimal Enchantment today and had it on while on the screens for work. About two tracks in I sat on the sofa and just chilled. 40 minutes later I got direct reports Slacking me on why I wasn’t in the meeting I scheduled! I hav.e had it continuously powered on since it hit the rack, maybe have 300 real hours on it. Long break in, but wasn’t like driving it off a cliff, was gradual, but took a while to get here. Running Nordost a Frey 2 xlr to the xp30. Seems to match up great.
So in the final analysis, was a great purchase so far. No regrets, everything that the Aurender a10 was, and then more, and ROON!
maybe it was last weekend but was listening to a Channel Classics LP by Rachel Podger doing Vivaldi la stravaganza. A wonderful piece. A wonderful performance and recording and just has that rightness that brings out the best in the system. Then I found it on qobuz in hi-res. It’s close... LP will win every time, but I’ll tell ya, I don’t feel I’m missing much on digital. Got find that recording and give it a whirl on your respective systems. Now I got a boat load of money in the TT rig and some fantastic tubes but if wasn’t already a total degenerate there, I’d be more than smitten with the Meitner MA3.
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No issues, not one. The interaction between core, remote and MA3 has worked flawlessly. I’ve taken all the point release updates from roon on day 1, no issues there. I’m running defaults everywhere except I popped in a 500ms delay when switching formats so you don’t get a click. I haven’t done any MQA, gonna re-enable my Tidal subscription this weekend and play around. I do like me the Qobuz though, like redbook but on steroids. |
That delay is called resync delay, and it’s set per device. |
Agreed, there's just something about his stuff that just seems to work. I was looking to see if I could score one on the used market, but they don't come up often and when they do, they're gone like beer in a college fridge.
I have hear the Bartok and Vivaldi, and the Select version of the MSB in other rooms but also with wilson front end and while very nice, i actually prefer the MA3. it's apples/oranges, but I'm not going to get on the DAC merry-go-round. At that level they are all of similar cloth, and you'd have to spend a ton more to get 'more', whatever that is. I'd rather save the cash and pay for a Qobuz subscription for the next 350 years or every last subscription that acoustic sounds puts out between now and my death bed! |
Agreed. I’d be hard pressed to find something more engaging for less than twice that price. Maybe the Nagra Tube DAC, at 4x the price including PSU, but then you need a streaming box too. I’ve had mine for what, 10 months now, been flawless, hasn’t even been powered off, it’s been converting bites every day. I’m sure you’ll end up holding onto it for a longer period of time if you end up writing a check for it. No plans to look elsewhere anytime soon.
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Agreed above. I run roon, and it is perfect in every way. Use both Tidal and Qobuz, but TBH, while MQA is kinda neat and can have a small measurable difference, still prefer the higher bitrate flat files from qobuz, plus the Tidal API times out from time to time.
What streaming platforms are you guys running?
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not sure if you are bitrate or resolution capped using apple music over network. it used to be streaming using airplay was basically 320kbps max
anyway, check it out, takes all of 3 minutes to set it up and start playing through your MA3. i went to the MA3 not only cause it was a superior DAC, but due to the software interface offered through roon. it replaced my Aurender a10 which had an UX i would recommend for enemies. it's the worst. good sound, but interacting with the aurender just took what joy i had using the A10. with MA3, great hardware, great software, and I'm not looking to change anything until i get Wadax money.
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mConnect is free and uses any NAS or streaming subscription you have. Roon though is top flight, and really great for meta data and music exploration. it's 20/month or something, a pittance really for what it brings to the table.
Roon guys iirc are originally the Meridian Sooloos software guys, and implemented a similar system decoupled from Meridian's hardware. It's like Apple OS without the Apple hardware tax. They have a 30 day trial. you can run the roon core on your mac, it's lightweight. it then pumps a stream losslessly to the MA3 which is roon ready.
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yeah, the EMM stuff definately punches above it's weight. Sure, there's something out there for far more money for a bit more of this or that, but of all the equipment that comes and goes, so far this has been sitting there doing it's thing and it's fantastic. Had it on earlier today playing the bill evans trio Sunday at the Village vanguard and just nailed it. I compared it to the new OJC 180gm and also my 200gm out of the bill evans box set from AP, and while the AP version steals the show every time, through the MA3....man, the piano sounds just about right for being a digital front end....
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Still in the rack, never been powered off, has performed flawlessly. It just gets out of the way. No issues with any Roon compatibility issues, even with all the the various updates, and now Roon 2.0 or whatever incremental build it is on. Hi res streaming from Qobuz beats the snot out of Tidal. Some of the MQA titles are great, but Qobuz is the defacto source provider. This thing really excels at classical and Jazz. Been going through the Naive label's Vivaldi project and I'll tell ya it sounds about as good as one can expect at double the price point. No digital etch, great tone color, decay is 'just right'. Just get one and don't look back. If you are a snowflake and decide it's not for you, you can flip it in a single day on 2nd hand market for almost what you paid for it.
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i spent some time with a buddy's DCS in the rack for a few months while he was out of country on job assignment. I'll take the MA3, thanks! and then go spend the 40k i saved on LPs. The DCS is so nice, but the MA3 is about 95% of the way there for 1/8th the cost. Head to head, unless you have a pair of XVXs and it's all VAC statement and Valhalla cabling, you're gonna be hard pressed to tell the difference. Seriously.
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Please do! Hope you got a good deal on it. If i get the upgrade bug (objection, leading question) I may go down this road with the DA2, but so far, I'm pretty happy where I'm at.
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well, it'll sound different, but not necessarily better, or worse than what you have now in the context of your system. you could always just buy it, and if you want to keep the MA3, take a $1k loss on it and flip it on Audiogon here, but then you'll know. I just got a long demo on a Linn Selekt DSM with the Organik DAC architecture, minimal build, no bells and whistles, and man...it's pretty sweet. If you are looking to change up, might wanna take a hard look at that if you have a dealer in your area, plus that thing is upgradable forever just about. Kinda like my old workhorse Theta Digital Casablanca.
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First, glad you stepped back and started thinking about what could be wrong and hope you didn’t spend a fortune on an Ethernet cable. Funny thing is in my system I have a 10’ Ethernet cable I that came with some god knows what device from years back and never really thought about an Ethernet cable. I’m in the camp you were, I mean, it’s a network cable who cares!!! I may need to now try this out myself. What audio quest cable and length did you go with and did you get a deal on it? I’m not gonna run out and go get a Nordost Odin 2 thing, but may toss a few pence and something better than scrap cable to see if there’s any change. Also, how long have you had the unit on? break-in is a thing but happened quicker than a CD player or preamp/amp. Also, are you using Roon with the device?
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