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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
tweak1
3,668 posts
 
WOW. This is the way all reviewers should write, but not many have the access to such relative kit
viber6
2,448 posts
 
Viber7,
Many thanks for your informative review of the 118, which I found helpful because we have similar values/tastes in music and audio. Mike Fremer in a recent Stereophile found the CH Precision 1.1 to have a touch of warmth but otherwise reasonably good detail. Do you find the same? Coolness of tonality may be associated with fatigue and HF extension but is somewhat different from thinness. The new Boulder 1160 amp has been reviewed as extremely revealing. Although some people have found previous Boulders as having very cool/ruthless tonality, the 1160 and possibly the lighter lower powered 1161 may be serious competition for the Merrill 116/118 for sound quality. I wonder if the 118’s still non fatiguing nature suggests that it is warmer and not quite as revealing in upper mid/HF range as the Boulder. I don't know if the 118 amp has the same soft landing feature as the Christine preamp, but I am concerned that you found the guitar plucks rounded and not as lifelike sharp as they are in real life.  Unamplified guitar is not loud, so this is a red flag for me in that the Merrill duo may be somewhat forgiving at all volume levels.  As you know, live classical music up close can be fatiguing at high SPL, such as hearing a trumpet projecting its bell toward your ears. In fact, the conductor Benjamin Zander said that Mahler wanted the brass section to play as loud as they can at the climax in the 1st movement of the 5th Symphony. The object of high fidelity in audio systems is to play the music at a sensible volume so that maximum clarity can be heard, without the fatigue that comes mainly from blasting the volume.  Another way to say this is that an accurate amp will sound fatiguing at unnaturally loud SPL, but reveal all the detail at lower SPL while avoiding fatigue.
aolmrd1241
1,042 posts
 
viber7...  Did you buy the Merrills? Or are you moving on?
ricred1
2,041 posts
 
viber7,
I usually don't read long post, but I read your entire post/review. It's great to read thoughtful reviews that differentiate between components without the hyperbole.

ricevs
1,543 posts
 

The new Totaldac amps would be a nice A/B with the 118s. They are about the same price ($40K per pair for balanced inputs only, single stereo amp is $20K and rca input only). Zero feedback tube/solid state versus zero feedback fast GAN. I would bet the Totaldac pair would be more musical.....but as dynamic, clear and fast? Never know till you try. So far, everyone who has heard the Totaldac amp is raving.

http://www.totaldac.com/amp-1-en.htm

What is for sure is that class D has finally arrived.  The Merrill may not be perfect but it is really good.  There will be cheaper class d amps in the future that will be better.....that, I have no doubt.  There is really very little inside a Class D amp that would warrant such money.  You are paying for being the first and the sexy box and packaging.  I am not saying that what is on the inside is junk.....just saying you could put the same insides in less sexy boxes and sell them direct for about one quarter the price......or way less.  Can someone please open the Merrill amps and take a pic so we can see all the stuff in there?  You notice, there are no pics anywhere, at this point.  I predict that within a few years (or sooner) you will see class D amps sounding as good or better for $5K or less......maybe highly modded Purifi modules....or whatever.   Class D should not be expensive.  Once you get rid of monster heatsinks, banks of output transistors and super large linear transformers (none of these things inside a Merrill), then the amps are way smaller, lighter and less expensive.  GAN transistors are not expensive and because they are so efficient you only need very few of them and even less heatsinking than mosfets.  The revolution has begun.  Remember, the first calculator was hundreds of dollars....now they give them away.  Here is a link to mono GAN amps that will be available for $1K the pair....I am sure they are not in the league of the Merrill amps...but this is just the beginning.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bosc-hifi-monoblock-class-d-amp/coming_soon

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