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Opinions about Daniel Hertz

Have anyone heard Daniel Hertz’s Maria intergrated amps with Eva or Amber speakers? Stephen Huff gave them one of the best reviews ever but is it all marketing and hype? Mark Levinson claims to solve the problems of digital reproduction with his master class software which can turn any digital recording into original master tape quality.  
 

But ML had a questionable past such as rebranding Chinese products as his own and marking up the price. Others said he can’t design anything but hires good talent while he works on marketing. His series of business ventures and contentious business relationships would give one pause, but I only care about the sound. What do others think? Did he in fact made a revolutionary breakthrough in digital playback. Or is it all hype? Bottom line is how do his systems sound?

eylai777
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jjss49
6,612 posts
 

over the years, despite its premium positioning marketing wise, i have never liked the sound of levinson/madrigal/proceed gear, then cello, then red rose - the various incarnations started by 'the person' mark levinson as he jumped from one to the next... each time the prices went more and more into the shameless nosebleed zone

hyper clear, etched, rather mechanical sounding, not organic, lacking in coherence to my ear -- the kind of sound that impresses in demos or at first listen, but which wears out its welcome upon ownership or extended listening

for this reason, i am not at all intrigued by this latest incarnation of levinson stuff under this daniel hertz label... maybe the sound is different this time, but i am hardly eager to find out

mikelavigne
2,148 posts
 

@jjss49 

Red Rose was mostly a re-branding of "Audio Prism", made in the USA (by friends of mine noted in the below article from 1999). those USA products were definitely not in that mechanical ’etched’ sounding category.

https://www.stereophile.com/news/10627/index.html

later they did add some Chinese sourced products (which i’ve not heard so cannot comment).

rwwear
2,848 posts
 

Well, if we’re just spending money, 30,000 Euro for an amp, I found a matching stove at .5 million...

That’s probably how much we’ll have to spend to have a gas stove soon.

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jjss49
6,612 posts
 

@mikelavigne

yes if memory serves, this was the model red rose tube amp (rebranded audioprism) i had in my second system for a while

red rose 

i didn’t think an el34 tube amp could sound shrill (may it was the lame shuguang tubes in it) but this one did and thus it didn’t last long -- back in went my arc vt50 in a hurry

redwoodaudio
413 posts
 

Love the m7 speakers which I still own and intend to keep for long time, didn’t love the Maria amp I was given to audition with it.  Didn’t hold a candle to my Absolare integrated, sounded like generic class d, bleached of color and texture.  Maybe that was because the user is forced to use bare wire speaker cables with the Maria amps, but probably not.  Can’t speak to the amber speaker… never heard it.  

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