Best DAC under $1500? Merason Frerot
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- Опубликовано: 10 июл 2024
- Well Pleased: bit.ly/3avXdtO
Frerot: bit.ly/3cEV6Eg
00:00 Start
01:24 General Information
03:14 Before Battle
04:53 Listening Impressions
07:06 Power Supply
11:09 Final Thoughts
💎💎💎 Speakers reviewed and recommend! 💎💎💎
Bookshelf:
Elac Unifi 2.0: amzn.to/2OrL5RW
Elac UB5: amzn.to/3qo2msU
Elac Debut 2.0: amzn.to/3uVfWar
Elac Debut Reference: amzn.to/2OnQU2W
SVS Ultra: amzn.to/3uXIkZJ
JBL Studio 530: amzn.to/3uVagNL
Floorstanding:
Q Acoustics Concept 500: amzn.to/3ddGkEx
SVS Ultra: amzn.to/3qo2msU
SVS Prime Pinnacle: amzn.to/2MMYt2J
Elac Debut 2.0: amzn.to/3ruZRX7
Elac Unifi 2.0 UF52: amzn.to/3uXJa8P
Elac UF5: amzn.to/3e9ri4F
Triangle Borea Bro 8: adorama.rfvk.net/Ygg9oO
PSB Alpha T20: amzn.to/3uS2swa
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Love that you came back with this beautiful dac, thanks Ron!
Great to have you back!
Thank you so much for your videos!
As soon as I saw you posted a new one, it filled me with joy. Really glad you and your family are doing better.
You are the best Mike!
Thank for the video and excellent review!!
All the best to you! I hope you and your family have recovered and are doing well.
Missed ya! So happy to see you recovering and still offering the best reviews around!
Welcome back. I pray that you and your family are doing 🙏🏿. I applaud your diligence and dedication and want you to know that you will always have the support and prayers of this audiophile.
Its great to see you back Ron, Happy Holidays bud!
Welcome back, Ron. Glad to see you :)
Glad to see you back with a great review.
Glad to see you back at it. Hope the family is doing well. Loved the review as I’m just dipping my toe into DACs.
great review. glad you are back!
Very happy to see you ! thanks for this wonderful review. You're always informative. I follow the things you say and have always found you to be sensibly correct.
So happy to see you.
Really happy to see you back, bringing us these wonderful and unusual finds! Super cool dac. As far as not breaking the bank but really nice chipset/topology in the even cheaper range, the Topping D70s is a real sleeper with a lot of tonal goodness, cues, stage and clarity you’d expect from much pricier dacs. But nice to see something outside of the usual suspects that might be a really nice upgrade 🙏🏼
Thanks John!
Thanks Ron. That was a great review
Welcome back, Ron! Great review. I love that you describe differences in terms other than simply the tone of the pieces. So easy for some reviewers to get hung up on this and miss the importance of elements like the ability to follow a quiet instrument buried in a loud mix!
Just speaking about power supplies, I recently ordered a linear power supply to compliment my DAC headphone amp from ifi. It cost less than £90 and made a significant difference to the sound. If I were buying this DAC, I would certainly consider adding such a PSU to your review machine before shelling out another $900 on the matching branded version.
Thanks Mark! Appreciate the comment and input on the importance of power!
Impeccable review!
Where are you? We need you as we close out this crappy year.
Glad to see you back in the saddle Ron!
Ron wanted to wish you and your family a merry christmas. Hope everyone gets back to full health by EOY and you guys have a great holiday season! Very appreciate of all the knowledge and entertainment we get on this channel.
Welcome back!
Great Review Ron! Thank you! 👍👍👍
Thanks Gino! Appreciate you.
Best shirt you’ve ever done a review in bro. Soon!
Hope you stay well along with your family Ron
Thank you Jerry!
Welcome back Ron! Curious what you thing of the cables from GR Research?
What track is that at the very end? Thanks for the great review and glad your back.
Hi Ron, It is always great pleasure to hear your opinion! Thank you!. Will you consider to review EarMen Tradutto DAC - announced 4Nov last year? it is even cheaper than this, but one review so far is very promising... like to hear yours!
Hi Ron. It has been a while since you last posted here. I hope everything is well with you and your family. Wishing you a better 2022... Sincerely, M.
I have both the frérot and power supply. It's smooth and I hear things I don't like in my other DACs. I can listen to it for hours without getting tired of it.
Yup, we are hearing the same thing.
What are your other DACs?
A warm welcome back Ron. It put a smile on my face seeing your video pop up, great to see you doing better. Great looking product and review.
Appreciate that John! Good to be back!
Sorry to hear about you and your family's illness. Glad that you're all on the mend.
Would you mind indulging me with an off topic question? 5 1/2 years later, do you still feel the same about the Volti Vittora?
Great review 👍 I’d be curious to see this go toe 2 toe with the Denafrips Pontus 🤔
Great to see you back! Did you try with KLH model five?
Yup! Nice combo!
HEy Ron, hope you and your family are well.
Could you do a review on the CSS Criton 1TD-X and maybe compare them the the XLS ?
All the best
Great review as always, thank you, Ron.
Hi Ron, please add Nuemann binaural sound samples to compare the DAC. I am especially curious to hear the different 3D presentation that your perceived. Thanks.
Ron, question if I may. Some time back you evaluated ( or at least had inhouse ) the GR Research X-Statik's but due to reasons you never RUclipsd the findings! Considering your involment with Danny I would of thought that airing your thoughts on the speakers would of been a no brainer. Has there been any thoughts about re opening this review to share with us ?
I have interest in purchasing the kit but would really appreciate your honest thoughts as I value your openion. Thanks.
Ron, everything okay…?
Missing your videos…
Nice review, Ron!...tastefully done. I just ordered a DAC at this exact price point. I have 2 weeks to review and if I send it back, this will be added to my short list. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
Which one did you try out?
Thanks so much Eric!
@@02honeydew it arrives next week. The MHDT Orchid (tube NOS DAC). I've come to realize that my ears prefer R2R (for the most part) and not Delta-Sigma. We shall see...
@@ericsunbacon745 What did you end up deciding? The MHDT dacs are NOS tube dacs but not technically r2r from my understanding.
@@todddelgiudice8258 after hearing the Orchid, I paired it with a 1949 manufactured Western Electric JW2C51 and never looked back. All said and done, my system is now made up of the most inexpensive components to date and yet I'm the happiest and most content I have EVER been. Instead of wanting to try the next new thing, I've been enjoying growing my Qobuz favorites list...it's a good place to be!
Gear is as follows:
*Willsenton R8 with Sophia Electric EL34, Northern Electric 6SL7, and RCA black base 6SN7.
*MHDT Orchid with several tube options, but I favorite is the WE JW2C51.
*Bluesound Node2i
*Tekton Designs Moabs with (2) 4-10 subs.
Cheers and happy listening!
Glad you're reviewing this one I've been thinking about buying it to pair with my Lehmann Audio Black Cube amp.
Good to see you back and well Ron!
Haven't seen you in awhile. I sure hope you and your family are well.
We are just fine. Getting organized for the new year.
Very awesome Ronnie thank you so much how would I hook this up to an Apple airplay device going into my vintage receiver? Also I’m glad you and your family are doing well and getting back on your feet
If the AirPlay device has digital out, you are golden. You could connect it to one of the digital inputs on frerot and analog out to the vintage receiver.
@@Newrecordday2013 thank you so very much please have an amazing evening
Great review Ron! Looking forward to more of them!
Thanks for watching!
Excellent review Ron. I am glad that you are feeling well. Curious for that price, how do you think is would compare to an RME ADI-2 DAC FS at $1,300?
For real, THIS is the comparison that screams to be done.
I was thinking the same because I have the RME DAC.
@@vincenthebert1608 Just based on what I've heard from reviewers, they seem to consistently praise the natural tone and soundstaging of the Frerot where the RME they appreciate the detail and neutrality with surprisingly warmish full bodied tone, but the soundstage is often described as flatter and not very wide. Merason sounds a lot more to my taste.
Hello. I couldn't help but recognize the Benchmark AHB2 in the background of the first images of this video. Have you already talked about it ? Do you plan to do it soon ? A fan since I discovered your tape-based floor decoration technique. My wife loves it :-).
Coming up soon!
Great. Thanks for your answer.
Nice to see you do your work again Ron. I don't need to watch this because I own both the Merason Frerot and Holo Audio Spring 3, so already know the conclusion :). Both are one of the (if not the) best DACs in their respective price categories. Well at least if you prefer a more real/natural/analogue and slightly smooth sound and have a divers taste in music. Great all-rounders. The Merason is slightly less controlled in the bass department than the Spring. The Spring 3 also has great PLL/reclocker on board. With the Merason you really need an excellent source or otherwise use a good third party reclocker to clean up the signal. I use the Matrix X-Spdif 2 with it in my desktop setup, great value product as well.
Thanks for sharing!
how would this compare to the pontus 2?
I see you have the m3 from spatial audio. Do you like the tweeter more then the X series? On your older youtube video the X sounded better...
how would this sound against my NAD D1050?
Is there a big difference between Hegel H390 internal dac and this dac Merason dac?
Can anybody give me an answer please 🙏
Ron.. whats your go to pre/amp for your spatial audio. I really want to also hear a Benchmark amp. I wonder how similar it sounds to a vtv purifi amp? One more thing..... did Kinki Audio go out of business? Lol. No one ever mentions them which leads me to believe other options have come out that is favorable in the price point.
Not sure about Kinki, that integrated amp I reviewed is ridiculously good. In regards to preamps, I’m changing them all the time with my current favorites being the Serene for transparency and my Dodd Audio tube preamp for that magic in the midband.
How it compare with Hegel HD12/HD25 dac's? HD12 1450msrp:)
How are you and your family doing? We miss you 😢
Just got a Frerot with the standard power supply today and I'm already loving it. I had the revamped Ares 12th, but the Frerot is already winning me over. Much better bass and imaging, but still has the R2R style wide sound stage. I'm not sure if I will spring for the upgraded power supply, but it makes you wonder lol
@jasonhilliker. Are you still enjoying the frerot? I’m looking for a Dac in this price range that is smooth, organic, musical has soul without losing detail, but not sounding analytical.
@@ericelmore2742 You should look into the Frerot, sounds like it fits the bill for you. Also check out A British Audiophile's review. I'm saving up for the power supply
I know it’s been reviewed to high hell but I am curious what your take would be on the Ares 2.
Or closer to the price of the ferot with denafrips pontus ii.. I believe that offers true balanced design from power stage to the r2r ladder(s) and galvanic isolation over the Ares ii.
@@erics.4113 Hey what's up Eric! Ah is the Ares not really balanced? Is it more just balanced "outputs"? I didn't even know that, honestly I've almost completely ignored its specs and just been enjoying the damn thing so much.
@@NemoPropaganda what's up brother! You're everywhere! I hit reply and then saw your name and was like I know this guy lol.
I totally misspoke so I'm going to edit that other post. The ares is true balanced in that it has a r2r ladder for L and R . The commentary was from another RUclipsr that measures DACs and although he gave a favorable review of the Ares he was dismayed by the NOS designation that denafrips states. As he measured (insert voodoo magic measurement) he concluded that the Ares is technically unable to do non over-sampling and that he didn't like denafrips claim that it does.
Here's the review and technical voodoo
ruclips.net/video/7obMQuxjSlA/видео.html
Btw I'm getting the Ares so I'm not crapping on it. I really want to hear this thing
@@erics.4113 ahaha, yeah I sub to all the OG's like NRD, Zero, Thomas, etc... Oh okay, yeah I don't pay attention to the NOS vs OS crap, it's like a minor difference you have to try to hear. Being that minor I think maybe it's only relevant to headphone users, I just left mine the way it came out of the box. The damn thing just sounds so incredibly good, I still need to review it, maybe this weekend.
@@NemoPropaganda I'm more or less sold on the Ares ii... I debated on the pontus but with the rest of my middling system it would be the most expensive component and that didn't seem right. I've debated Cambridge dac magic, Andrew Robinson really seemed to like that one. The topping d90 (one that Thomas loves.. and how much do we all love Thomas lol). And then there's the bifrost 2 which Randy and the sith like as well as the denafrips and geshelli (sp) labs.
For some reason I thought you reviewed the Ares but i would say go for it man. You've listened to plenty of integrated dacs, have the node with its dac and a revealing system that you can really flush out the differences when you upgrade to a stand alone r2r like the Ares. Would think it helpful if you used more than just the mono blocs to AB... what does the Ares gain using with lesser stacks ..
Does Randy know you're invading budget territory? If this is so good, I'm curious on your thoughts about the Merason DAC-1.
It’s excellent 😉!
Hope you and your family are OK Ron - not seen anything from you in a while and you're definitely missed. Some of my key moments from your channel for the year have been the speaker placement one with the masking tape and starting with speakers at (or as close to) in line with the couch/chair/listening position (awesome and a fun way to spend an afternoon) - and your moments of saying (and I'm paraphrasing sorry) that you know when something is good when the music just catches you and you have to stop or you forget what you were doing ... My recent near field experience after upgrading to an RME ADI-2 DAC FS has me doing that all the time - even with relatively cheap desktop speakers. Anyway - wishing you and your family well over the festive season ...
Sound demo of merason
No sound demo?
Hello, someone help me with Ron statement about this DAC is strictely PCM with 24 bit limit?
Yes, only PCM, no DSD, only Coax, so 24 bit
Is this better than the Denafrips Pontus?
Great question!
Can someone help me - does a well sounding DAC exist at this price that has proper power supply, has MQA, DSD, has a proper headphone amp, has good preamp function and has balanced outputs? - Streaming not necessary - I would actually prefer it not to have on board BT or WiFi. Any recommendations?
Take a look at SMSL M500 or similar. It’s possibly a little more analytical. You can look at the akm based SMSL if you want slightly more warmth
the mytek liberty dac. that's what i use.
Wow. What am I (still) doing to so 2 centuries ago ol' trusty CDs??? (honestly asking myself).....
My favorite dac for under $1500 is the THX Onyx dongle DAC, and it’s only $200. I love this DAC paired with my Hifiman Sundara headphones ($250) and my iPad.
Why didn't you review Dac1?
Its a nail biter of a conspiracy.
How will your rewues be affeckted of that you're beeng paid for having products on your show. Is'nt that a comersial, and not a rewue or test..?
And a audio question to you, Hegel HD11Dac, how much must I pay to top that sonicaly..?
How does it stack up against the Holo Spring 3 KTE dac?
Spring 3 is better. I’ll talk about that soon.
So, I'm curious... You guys who rely so much on your DACs, such DAC is plugged to an amp, I'm pretty sure, and WHAT? Laptop?
On the DACs input, you generally, as a source component, connect the digital output of a laptop, streamer, CD player (if not using the player's built-in DAC), tablet, cell phone, etc.
NRD gives me all the gas I need. (toot toot)
$1500+ we are in Pontus territory
That explanation "It is easy to listening to for long listening sessions" should not exist for any DAC at any price point.Because if something is not good for long listening it would not be good for short listening session too!
To me dacs dont really change that much tbh. Everyone is using the same chips.
oops....thought it was best DAC for $15.00....maybe tomorrow?
how are you not a sukker if you pay 900 for a low power powerselply?
Some folks care about every ounce of performance they can get. Some don’t.
Sorry Ron. Gumby for me upgradeable is the ticket.
Disappointed no view of internals .I like to see layout and quality of construction. What are the brand of the discrete components ? I am not fond of subjective reviews that are sponsored and not controlled by double blind testing
Sounds like you need to find a different reviewer then. Thanks for stopping by.
@@Newrecordday2013 I don't consider you an objective reviewer
@@99fulham99 How about you go to such effort to make us a review then talk?
DACs shouldn't sound like anything. ADCs _really_ shouldn't sound like anything either, leaving the sound difference in the hands of producers and recording engineers. The recording quality, for all its strengths or faults, should ideally be the only thing you hear (in a perfect world).
The best projectors and TVs reproduce the quality of the production with regard to established standards already in place. The highest reviewed units do so with the greatest accuracy and definition. Keep in mind, too, that vision is FAR more complicated than hearing, and yet having established standards in visual reproduction NEVER led to any less competition between brands and offerings in that domain.
I don't understand the point that you are trying to convey.
@@cablebrain9691 Sorry to hear that.
@@slofty OK, well......thanks for not caring enough to explain.
@@cablebrain9691 Do I owe you something?
@@slofty Nope, I'll just ignore your gibberish and antisocial behavior. Have a nice day. 🙂
MQA is dead, Hony, MQA is dead.
Likely never buying any $1500 plus dac! They all become near worthless every few years.
But will still probably sound great in 10 years.
@@Gman1044 …just likes the better DACS from 10 years ago still sound great today
Great to see ya back in the reviewing saddle again and that yer family is recovering ❤️🩹
Also, I really appreciated the quick tease of the Benchmark AHB2! Finally 🙌! Been looking forward to the review all these years since the DAC2 review. Cheers