Dragonfly red or meridian exp 2?

I ended up with a Meridian Explorer 2...., posted on May 29, 2017 at 15:39:46
Ivan303 Audiophile Posts: 48887 Location: Cadiere d'azur FRANCE - Santa Fe, NM Joined: February 26, 2001	Thanks Bullethead! I don't know it I would let MQA or no dictate my DAC selection, but I can say, MQA or no, the Meridian is a pretty decent sounding piece for the $$. Surprisingly so. First they came for the dumb-asses And I did not speak out Because I was not a dumb-ass

RE: Dragonfly red or meridian exp 2?, posted on May 29, 2017 at 16:11:27

PAR

Tney are two different types of device as far as MQA is concerned.

The Explorer provides full MQA decoding. The Dragonfly is only a renderer which means that the first unfold ( to 24/96kS/s) has to be done externally e.g. by the in-app decoder in Tidal. The Dragonfly will undertake the following two unfolds ( if available - however most hi-rez is 24/96). The Dragonfly upgrade also unlocks the DAC to process data up to 24/768 if MQA is present, should you ever come across the latter data rate :-)).

RE: I ended up with a Meridian Explorer 2...., posted on May 29, 2017 at 18:00:12

bullethead

Your welcome, glad you found a use for it, I didn't need it since I cancelled a Tidal a few months ago. Glad it found a good home. I thought the Meridian sounded ok, I could definitely hear a difference with MQA as well. It is a nice unit.

I only see a few mid level DACs that support MQA now, such as the Mytek, I think that's how it is spelled.

There is the expensive Meridian Ultra DAC that is supposed to be a reference, over $10,000 I think,

Reason I gave up so quick was my budget for DACs is about $3k, and the options weren't there and I don't have patience to wait for more Tidal releases from other labels, plus playing Black Sabbath, the Doors and Bjork over and over again didn't justify a jump into the MQA bandwagon right now, well at least a few months ago during that early adopter experiment.

We will see how it takes off, it does sound good. With the right DAC I would definitely say excellent, content is king however.

RE: I ended up with a Meridian Explorer 2...., posted on May 29, 2017 at 18:25:03
ahendler Audiophile Posts: 5151 Location: San Antonio, Texas Joined: January 24, 2003	The Ultradac is over $20,000 Alan

RE: Dragonfly red or meridian exp 2?, posted on May 29, 2017 at 21:32:07
Javier Audiophile Posts: 338 Location: Laredo Joined: December 14, 2005	Thank you for your input I'll go with the meridian just to get a taste of it

RE: I ended up with a Meridian Explorer 2...., posted on May 30, 2017 at 06:23:13
bullethead	how do you like it?

RE: I ended up with a Meridian Explorer 2...., posted on May 30, 2017 at 07:12:02
ahendler Audiophile Posts: 5151 Location: San Antonio, Texas Joined: January 24, 2003	The Explorer2 is a decent dac but it is what it is, a $200 dac. My Master 7 without MQA sounds way better than the Explorer even with MQA files MQA on a cheap dac is still a cheap dac Alan

RE: Dragonfly red or meridian exp 2?, posted on May 30, 2017 at 09:35:48
bullethead	good move, I gave mine to Ivan303, it did sound good. However it is not up to the "high end" level, it is more of a toy.

I thought you had the Meridian Ultra DAC, posted on May 30, 2017 at 18:25:15
bullethead	I am happy with my Auralic Vega myself. Cheers!

RE: I thought you had the Meridian Ultra DAC, posted on May 30, 2017 at 20:51:53
ahendler Audiophile Posts: 5151 Location: San Antonio, Texas Joined: January 24, 2003	Audio-GD Master 7 Alan

Computer Audio Asylum

Dragonfly red or meridian exp 2?

187.254.29.213