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Merrill Audio ELEMENT 118 on Tour

As some of you know I had to deal with a serious family medical issue which has been miraculously cured. So the new ELEMENT amplifiers are getting out to all those asking about them and the few lucky ones that have purchased them.

The ELEMENT 118 and ELEMENT 116 will be going out to reviewers and on tour to various audiophiles and dealers. So more will be showing up. I will provide a short trail and welcome questions and comments, all in good spirit.

After years of research and using OEMS, we have a proprietary design that we believe is an order of magnitude improvement over the previous amps and also sets a standard across all the classes of amps in terms on sonics. Of course taking a listen and doing a comparison is the best way to confirm this.

The new design is an open loop, zero feedback, and zero deadtime, using the Gallium Nitride Transistors - which unlike other transistors have close to zero capacitance and hence allow very fast switching. Additionally the PCB and layout is a highly advanced layout that reduces the parasitic capacitance and inductance to near zero, allow close to zero overshoot and ring, and of course the zero deadtime. The open loop, zero feedback, zero deadtime allows a spacious and precision stage with long detailed decays, very fast attack without the parasitics causing other distortions. The first 10 seconds impresses the listener with a musical tone, that is open, wide and fast. The rest is musical immersion.

I will post the systems as they are run through as best I can. Enjoy and I hope you get to listen to the ELEMENT Series of Power Amplifiers near you.
merrillaudio
merrillaudio OP
63 posts
 
Comparision of Merrill Audio ELEMENT 116 Power Amplifiers to VERITAS Monoblocks based on Hypex NC1200.

This comparison was done by a Merrill Audio dealer in Brooklyn, NY. You can bring your there amps to compare to the ELEMENT 116 at anytime.

Hey Merrill,
Thank you for lending them to me for a few days. I had the opportunity of spending the better part of 2 days listening to them and switching back and forth with the Veritas.
I took notes, I am planning to write a review… My general impression is WOA! Honestly, they leave the Veritas in the dust. I wont say that in the review of course. The Veritas are great amps and these cost 2ice as much. But there really is no comparison other than the ELEMENT 116 take all of the good qualities of the Veritas and run with them. The metaphor that comes to to mind is this: Imagine the sound image is a relief sculpture. With the Veritas, the image is chiseled with delicacy and finesse. You “see" (hear) all of the details and perceive all of the textures and tones, specially if you focus your attention on any of these qualities. With the ELEMENT 116 Power Amplifiers, the image, its details, textures and tones are even more fine and clear, but, more pointedly, the background from where the images emerge is farther back, more recessed and thus the figures and their contour and placement in the scene is way more evident without effort. So if with the Veritas YOU COULD PERCEIVE THNGS IF YOU PLACED YOU ATTENTION ON THEM, with the ELEMENT 116 Power Amplifiers, it is almost impossible to miss them. They are self-revealing and evident. They jump into space as the music unfolds with natural force and they recede into nothingness with such momentum that you can’t miss them. It is quite something. This was evident in ALL recordings. Dull records sounded alive, great records sounded as vivo performances right there on the space between the system and I. Specially one record, https://www.bauerstudios.de/de/data/shop/6560/ was so vivid and real that Mar, who was in a separate room and with earbuds on listening to a talk, yelled “WAO!!!” when the first track concluded and came to join me to listen to the rest of the LP. I did not tell her which amps were playing and asked her to close her eyes when finished and switched to the Veritas. She got up after a minute: "This sounds great, but it’s uninteresting by comparison.”
In short, these are quite an achievement. Seriously the best amplification I have ever heard. I am sure the ELEMENT 118 Power Amplifiers are even better, specially under stress, but these ELEMENT 116 Power Amplifiers are something achievable and to cherish.
Best,Isaac Rivera
livingacoustics.com
111 Montague StreetBrooklyn, New York 11201


Link to Picture of the setup
http://bit.ly/LivingAcousticsELEMENT116

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maritime51's avatar
maritime51
1,288 posts
 
Exciting news. 
merrillaudio OP
63 posts
 
LOL! Ladder DAC has many complicated issues. Using the the GaN transistors would be like putting rocket fuel in a Ford Pinto - for those that remember the Pinto.
merrillaudio OP
63 posts
 

The ELEMENT 118's driving very low efficiency PipeDreams. This is the original pipe dream speakers, never sold. A new design based on this coming soon.

Click on the link to see all the pictures.
bit.ly/RossPipedreams



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