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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
 
EnjoyTheMusic.com puts out a review on the Merrill Audio ELEMENT 116 Monoblocks and surprisingly covers the VERITAS, and other Hypex Ncore NC1200 Implementations.

http://www.enjoythemusic.com/superioraudio/equipment/0619/Merrill_Audio_Element_116_Veritas_Review.h...

Other news - Merrill Audio ELEMENT 116 Monoblocks now available for listening in Hong Kong. Send me PM for listening info. Driving the MBLS's.
aolmrd1241
1,042 posts
 
Looks as if the Veritas monos are holding their own against the E 116...And 10G less to boot...8)
mrdecibel
3,064 posts
 
The " stated " signal to noise ratio on the Veritas seems to be much lower than on the 116, 128 db vs. 110 db. Is this a mistake ?
ricevs
1,543 posts
 

Probably Merrill was just stating the factory spec for the NC1200 module whereas he is actually measuring? his 116......A lot of "factory specs" never are realized in real life.  Maybe Merrill will chime in here.   These specs mean very little in terms of listening.  You could have a no oversampling DAC with pretty bad signal to noise ratio that sounds way more transparent than some DAC with tons of filtering (digital and analog).  We know the 116 is better than Veritas (verified by many).  But is it better than the $5000 mono Van Alstine amps that clobbered the Veritas?  How about the Cherry Megachino II amps?  How about the Nuprime biggies, the NC1200 amps from Nord, my $2500 dual mono tweaked to the max IceEdge amps?......not to mention tons of other class A and A/B amps (transistor and tube).

In the above review what amps do width, depth and decay better?  He only rated the 116 4 or 4.5 notes on these categories.  Another fine review telling us nothing.

Wouldn't you love it if some reviewer got the "reputed best" 20 amps under $25,000 and tested them all at the same time.  Burning them all in for a month.  Testing them on different feet and with different power cords and on several systems.  Then we will know something.  We know nothing!!!!!!  High end audio is just a bunch of illusions.....he he.  Buy whatever makes you happy, just don't compare it to anything else.....you might not like what you paid big bucks for. 

viber6
2,448 posts
 
As a violinist, I think this latest review by Dr. Michael Bump is reasonably informative.  Many audiophiles describe sound in terms of width, depth, decay.  These are all derived characteristics, particularly width and depth which are subjective, whereas the fundamentals of music are frequency balance and extension, transient response and tone.  Dr. Bump certainly describes the amps with the educated ear of a professional musician whose training and present activity revolve around clarity and precision, as he states.  These are the most important characteristics of both live and reproduced music.  It would have been more informative if he compared the 116 and Veritas in the checklist at the conclusion.  Importantly, the 116 is given the maximum 5 notes for attack, but is the Veritas only 4 or 4.5 notes?  I didn't research any prior review of the Veritas in the same magazine which could have been done by someone else.  Maybe they rated Veritas as 5 notes for attack, but what counts is how a single reviewer rates both products in various criteria.  Dr. Bump is very articulate, but it helps to see numerical ratings as a summary at the end.

I hope the upcoming review comparison by Srajan in 6 moons of the prototype amp with Purifi module and the 116 is properly informative.  Let's keep our eyes peeled.
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