Playback Designs Merlot DAC/Headphone Amp with DSD 256

[VoicesInMyHead]

thanks for the answer. I'm going to hear both of those DACs this week. But one question: I see online basic Atlantic costs 4000 Euro, and Merlot cost $6500. That's only about a 50% difference, no?

You're right, they're a bit closer to each other in price... Sorry about that.

 

In comparison to the Atlantic too many parameters has changed in my system since I tested the Merlot to give a fair statement about it. I do suspect the Atlantic to be a bit more holographic and 3-dimensional in it's presentation though, but as said, two great DAC's for sure! Two DAC's coming from very different perspectives also, and I wouldn't think they would actually be up against each other that much.

[zettelsm]

Steve - Thanks very much for adding your perspective about the Merlot; I find it very interesting since I also used to own an MPD-3! When I had that DAC I felt it really excelled in DSD playback, but took a significant step back in relative performance with PCM. You stated that the Merlot shines with native DSD256, so I wonder what your impressions of it are with PCM source material and how you think that relatively compares with the MPD-3. I'm also heavily invested in vinyl playback and have been on what seems like an endless search for digital playback that captures a good measure of that relaxed and engaging analog magic.

 

Thanks for the kind words, Bill.

 

You pose a very interesting question and one that I haven't addressed yet -- the Merlot's PCM performance vs DSD. Since starting to play the Merlot I've almost exclusively been using Roon > HQPlayer > microRendu > Merlot with HQPlayer set to convert all PCM to DSD256 and play all DSD files at their native DSD rate.

 

Two reasons for that -- I wanted to see if my late-2012 i7 Mac Mini would support the heavy processing with HQP and my fiber optic network would handle the data rate without glitches or dropouts (it does very well so far), and secondly, DSD256 just sounds so darn good!

 

But I really should give various PCM rates a try at their native resolution. With the MPD-3 I actually thought the DAC's own upsampling and algorithms did a better job than HQP or maybe it was the apodizing algorithms Andreas Koch developed for 44.1 and 48 kHz PCM that were better, but after a brief trial with HQP conversion I went back to playing everything natively through the MPD-3.

 

Now that I have enough hours on the Merlot to hopefully not conflate on-going break-in with potential differences between the way the Merlot handles PCM and DSD it's a good time to try a few experiments.

 

I have some of the same performances in a variety of PCM and DSD rates from HDTT so I can give that a try later this morning, and I know the 2L website also has identical files in a variety of rates that I can download and test.

 

I'll give those a try and let you know what I hear.

 

Best regards,

 

Steve Z

[zettelsm]

Now that I have enough hours on the Merlot to hopefully not conflate on-going break-in with potential differences between the way the Merlot handles PCM and DSD it's a good time to try a few experiments.

 

I have some of the same performances in a variety of PCM and DSD rates from HDTT so I can give that a try later this morning, and I know the 2L website also has identical files in a variety of rates that I can download and test.[\QUOTE]

 

So I put HQP back into "pass-through" mode without any conversion PCM or DSD and played several tracks from the HDTT download of Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat directed by Robert Mandell as well as the 2L recording of Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 with Marianne Thorsen and the Trondheim Solistene; L'Histoire in 24/192, DXD (24/354) and DSD128, the Violin Concerto in 24/192 and DSD64. I also played a couple of tracks from some go-to CD rips -- The Chieftain's "Tears of Stone" and Aerosmith's "The Essential Aerosmith" -- chosen because they're good but not necessarily special CDs, representative of much of the music I have stored on my NAS.

 

This was an interesting experiment.

 

I found I slightly prefer the DSD versions of the tracks I compared -- I though there was a little more air and depth with DSD, while the PCM had a touch of wire to the violins and flatter perspective. The act of committing this description to writing probably magnifies the actual differences, but I consistently and repeatably heard the same characteristics.

 

As far as the CD rips, in their native resolution they sounded exactly like what they are, very good but certainly not demonstration-class tracks. So the Merlot is not prettying up anything -- it stays very true to the quality of the material it's presented with. Which is not to say CD-quality PCM or streaming FLAC from TIDAL isn't enjoyable, it very much is. And this latter part of the experiment prompted me to play a couple of really, really well-recorded CD rips and they were every bit as captivating in native resolution as they are converted by HQP to DSD256.

 

So, what to make of all this? I would hesitate to read into my one little experiment that the Merlot does better with DSD than PCM. There are several other possible explanations that immediately occur to me.

 

Not to fan any flames in the never-ending PCM vs DSD war, but it could be that DSD just sounds better than PCM. It's possible but that is all I'll say about that -- I don't want to get engaged in arguments about belief-systems or hi-jack this thread into something else.

 

Setting aside the first possibility, it could very well be that *I* prefer the sound of DSD over PCM (or presumably, the package of DSD artifacts over the bundle of PCM imperfections).

 

Congruent with this second possibility, it could also be that my system presents DSD better than PCM and a different system might see my or other's relative preferences reversed.

 

Finally, though each of the DSD and PCM tracks from HDTT and 2L were converted from the same performance, there is the unknowable possibility that the equipment, software or algorithms in use to convert DSD and PCM were of differing quality and that is conflating my comparisons.

 

What I can take away after all of this is that I never found the Merlot's handling of music to be less than excellent regardless of what type, rate or HQP conversion or lack of conversion I applied to it. And in all cases I found the Merlot to surpass the performance of my older MPD-3 (which I've had plugged into my preamp and energized for the last couple of days just to compare to the Merlot as it breaks in).

 

At this level I think it comes down as much to one's personal preferences and system synergy as much as any other choice and I have no doubts there are DACs out there that might sound just as good to me as the Merlot in the right system. But I also think if a person can arrange it, time spent listening via a Playback Designs Merlot will be well worth the trouble.

 

Steve Z

[audio.bill]

Steve - Thanks for taking the time to do such extensive comparisons and to share your valuable perspective with us. You raise some excellent points, in that it's difficult to extrapolate results you obtained along with your system and personal preferences to others. You have nevertheless provided some details on the comparison that I believe will be helpful to myself and others here. Btw, congrats on assembling such an excellent system, that Dynavector XV-1s is one sweet sounding cartridge! Guess our analog talk doesn't really belong on this forum. Good listening!

[zettelsm]

Steve - Thanks for taking the time to do such extensive comparisons and to share your valuable perspective with us. You raise some excellent points, in that it's difficult to extrapolate results you obtained along with your system and personal preferences to others. You have nevertheless provided some details on the comparison that I believe will be helpful to myself and others here. Btw, congrats on assembling such an excellent system, that Dynavector XV-1s is one sweet sounding cartridge! Guess our analog talk doesn't really belong on this forum. Good listening!

 

Thank you, Bill. I appreciate the kind sentiments. It's been a 40 year work-in-progress but things have really come together on the digital side the last couple of years, thanks to folks like Andreas Koch, Jesus Rodrigues, John Swenson and Alex Crespi pushing the envelope. I honestly think that the digital sound quality we can achieve today would not have been possible even five years ago regardless of expense. And today, it is within reach of almost any enthusiast.

 

(And I agree completely about the XV1-S!)

 

Very best regards,

 

Steve Z

[firedog]

Just heard the Merlot for the first time. I thought it sounded very good even with straight CD playback.

My main impression was that it made every track sound more "alive" - in a good musical way - than many other DACs, that somehow are also very good, but somehow seem less "alive" and more artificial - even though their reproduction of tone, etc. is very good.