lizard84
Abider
I’ve had this dac a short while and will expand on my impressions as I roll up the hours of usage. I bought it based on reviews I’ve read and for its DSD and MQA capability’s. At $399 it seemed like it could be a good bridge between my $199 Meridian Explorer 2 and a future dac I plan to get in the $2000 range
The unit is small but has some heft to it for its size and feels solid, it utilizes two ESS 9038Q2M 32 bit chips, inputs are 1 USB, 1 co-axial and 1 optical and my impressions will be confined to the usb with is MQA capable as well as DSD up too DSD 512 and PCM up to 32b/768hz. Outputs area headphone out on the front and left and right RCA outs on the back. The headphone out will probably not get much use as I have a fine tubed headphone out on my Modwright LS100 preamp.
The S2 has 8 filter settings as well as a distortion compensate mode, those modes and filters have not yet been explored and I believe the 8 filters are not available when playing MQA content.
It’s powered via a wall wart which supplies 5V DC, the S2 doesn’t have an on/off switch, you leave it on, unplug it or utilize something else, I have it plugged into my Furman Elite 15.
Playback of digital and streaming content be via a Apple Mac Mini utilizing Audirvana and initial impressions are very good, right out on the box I immediately notice a vastly improved bass over the Explorer 2 which honestly I didn’t feel was lacking, overall detail is up a notch as well.
More to come
