Merrill VERITAS monoblock amplifiers

Hi Theo, the Merrill Veritas is a very fine sounding amplifier. You will find my discussion of its internals, break-in process, and performance relative to my own system in my article for PFO:

http://positive-feedback.com/Issue68/merrill_audio.htm

Saluti, Guido

Guido, how you doin?

OK, to answer the OP. I am one of the first to own the Veritas. I also had a demo pair on and off in my system for four months. Am I still enjoying it? Hell yes! IMHO it is one of a handful of amps that are worth owning.
I had gone through MANY amps over the years never really satisfied with the overall sound from them. ALL highly respected brands. Some expensive.
As no one piece of equipment is perfect I expect that I have to compromise but the Veritas is one of the few that has the least amount of compromise.

I have heard your brand amp many times and I can tell you that you will be more then happy with the sound of the Veritas.

The Veritas is so good that many times it will show what is the weakest link in your system. Sometimes when this happens the Veritas is made the suspect. WRONG. The smart, open minded and patient ones are rewarded with better sound and a better system.

Now some people will suggest that the Veritas is not musical, is sterile, blah blah blah. TOTALLY the opposite.
It is one of the purist,transparent,resolving,dynamic,musical and tonally accurate amps IMHO.

One more thing. Several (more really) Audiophiles that sold their Pass, ARC, Ayre, Devialet, CJ, Krell and Atma-Sphere amps and bought the Veritas after hearing it.

Hello Ptheo,

I hope two things for you very much, first you got a great price on these mono blocks because I believe they are hideously over priced and secondly that you like their sonic's a lot more then your very good Coda. The Ncore modules used in these amps are much better sounding then other types of D amps, however I still do not find them as musical as some of the better and less expensive SS or tube amps. The Ncore modules themselves are relatively inexpensive, yet the retail price of the Merrill VERTTAS is 12K. I know you get a well built and fancy chassis, it seems it stocked with good parts, however I can't see how you could justify what these sell for.

Teajay, there are at least two extreme ways on how to look at the value of a piece of audio electronics....

From a purely functionalistic point of view, the value is purely based on how the device performs when compared to devices of comparable/lower/higher price. Under this criterion, based on my modest experience listening to a variety of amplifiers, including Veritas completely broken in at 1K hours of processing sound, I am confident that Veritas price is attractive. Please note that I have not had the opportunity yet of listening to other amps that have declared to be based on Ncore NC1200 technology, nor to amps based on other new class D technologies like Pascal or Abletech. So my statement above does not take into account other such new contenders.

Conversely, if we look at the value of a device based on the amount of active internal components, the relative crowdedness of the layout, the complexity of the design surrounding the fundamental power conversion modules, and the mass ratio of circuit elements vs metalwork, you may have a good point.

Needless to say, it all depends on what is important for the OP, and in what ratio.

G.

"09-26-13: Teajay
Hello Ptheo,

I hope two things for you very much, first you got a great price on these mono blocks because I believe they are hideously over priced and secondly that you like their sonic's a lot more then your very good Coda. The Ncore modules used in these amps are much better sounding then other types of D amps, however I still do not find them as musical as some of the better and less expensive SS or tube amps. The Ncore modules themselves are relatively inexpensive, yet the retail price of the Merrill VERTTAS is 12K. I know you get a well built and fancy chassis, it seems it stocked with good parts, however I can't see how you could justify what these sell for."

Hi teajay.

I am curious were and in what setup you had the chance to hear the Veritas?

As far as the cost of the amps you (and some others) do not understand the TOTAL Costs involved in the markup of goods. It is FAR from just the cost of the parts in any product.
That said it all comes down to the "performance and sound" when it comes to audio. If the amps,DAC, etc sound great who cares if it a "wire with gain" or a complex 100 part piece of equipment. If the only way to have it is to buy from the OEM vs DIY then you buy the OEM. Even your Pass amps have very little inside them. It is REALLY the Engineering and Technology behind them with the Proper Implementation and Assembly that has the real value in the sale price of the amp. Sure parts matter but it is not a game of who has the most parts and whose are the biggest. But what you do with them and does it make great sound.
Look, I love the sound of the Class A Pass amps. But they are too heavy, can heat a house, too expensive, etc for me.

"hideously over priced" Really? You can say that about almost all high-end Audio. Are amps worth $30,000, $60,000 or even $200,000. Or Cables, Or DACs, Or Turntables. OR etc.

As Guido mentioned about the Pascal or Abletech tech I too am interested in hearing them. More so the Pascal.