And to maintain as much relevance to as many SBAF members as possible, I used the HD-650 as a baseline there, but I’ll include notes on how things faired with more demanding cans as well and as appropriate. However, I also let them loose on my full-size cans to determine broader relevance and capability. Most of my critical listening on these units was done with the Shure SE846 and original ER4-S, with a quick round of impressions using the Campfire Audio Vega, in keeping with their nominally portable-bias. And a final post will include some comparisons to other players/DAPs. The third will cover comparisons to the Schiit Modi Multibit etc. The second will be a focused on sound and results, and will likely received additional “color commentary” - this will be the most useful I expect. The first (this one) will cover the overview and core information for the above units. This has resulted in this being a rather long write-up (single-post-breakingly long) and, as a result, I’m going to break it up into several posts, over a couple of days. The extra bits being Schiit’s Modi multi-bit and the Apple Lightning to 3.5mm dongle.
#MERIDIAN EXPLORER DAC REVIEW PORTABLE#
So, what was going to be a relatively focused review is now a five-way portable DAC/amp comparison, with a couple of extra bits in for reference/comparison:
A little time with this meant it wouldn’t really be cricket to not include this in the comparison as well. Next I picked up a Geek Out V2+ Infinity, a unit I’d been wanting to hear for a while but had never gotten my head around actually managing to buy. So, I figured I’d include it in my comparison with the iFi unit. This proved to be quite the diversion (more about that in another thread), but on top of the MQA aspect the Explorer 2 turned out to be interesting enough to warrant more commentary. My intent when I started this was to do a review of the iFi Audio Micro iDSD Black Label, with very high-level comparisons to Chord’s Mojo and the AudioQuest Dragonfly Red and, maybe, a Schiit Modi MB for good measure (and as a well-known reference point).įirst, Tidal started streaming MQA content, and I picked up a Meridian Explorer 2 to have a cheap/convenient way to explore MQA a bit.