MerrillAudio Veritas Reviewed at Dagogo

Hifial,

One thing I've noticed is that if you really are a fan of a piece of gear, probably the worst thing you can do is to start posting over enthusiastic responses about that equipment all over the forums. Regardless of your intentions, it often makes the poster look suspicious and can even hurt the overall perception of the product. I know there's been at least one instance of a manufacturer actually asking a "fan" to tone it down because he thought the over enthusiasm was hurting the perception of his products.

Just trying to help.

Hifial,

You can publish reviews of equipment and even music here on Audiogon. Less chance of getting bashed promoting something you like that way if done well.

["Mapman I suppose once an innovative cost effective product or technology catches on in the high end audio world, it is ripe for a big markup if its performance is competitive with much more expensive gear. Class D amps fit this bill perfectly. I doubt that the much larger potential markets other than "high end audio" will go unserved though, so I think there will be many competitive offerings with excellent performance at a range of price points. Some will be more luxury minded and others more value oriented."]

Absolutely, I agree.

The reviewer mentions the manufactures attention to detail as if some unique changes in design have been made other than the exotic use of anodized aluminum casework. To me that remark smacks of what many switching amplifier manufactures do by simply using of the shelf switching modules and power supplies from manufactures such as Hypex and B&O.

For what its worth, long before the Hypex offshoot Mola Mola actually had a completed prototype they eluded that their amplifier prices would be somewhere in the $5K per mono range.

Again, I'm not complaining, just considering the historical value of previous non proprietary designed class D offerings.

A friend sent me a couple of DIY NCore NC400 amps that he did and I got them yesterday. He wanted my opinion of them. I tried them against my McCormack DN225 amp. At first the 225 blew away the 400s. The 225 was so much more warm, involving and real. The 400s sounded very clear, clean and dull. I was disappointed in them as I had high hopes for them.

Running my air conditioner to cool the 225 it costs me over 10 cents an hour to run what I have. That works out to hundreds of dollars a year with the amount I run my system. Being class D the 400s run much cooler.

Today, thinking that the 400s might be a bit more neutral than the 225 I started pondering my Calypso tube preamp. I used the stock Sovtek tubes as it was the most neutral tube that I could find. That worked best to balance with the warmth of the McCormack. I got out some Telefunken smooth plate 12AX7s that I had and put them in the Calyspso. Magic! They sounded bad with my 225 but great with the NCores. My system now had plenty of warmth, excitement and possessed an amazingly realistic wide sound field. My system may be better with digital and vinyl than it has ever been.

It is amazing that a system can go from crap to great with a little adjustment in component synergy. I need to remember that when I hear something that I think sounds awful. I should keep a little objectivity.

Bob

Rsimms,

Your accounting does not surprise me.

I think the Icepower based Class D Bel Canto ref1000m amps I use are as neutral sounding as anything I have heard. That means a lot of what you end up hearing and enjoying will be a function of what you feed them. Some tube gear upstream then is often the key. I use an ARC sp16 tube pre-amp (also fairly neutral sounding at least as tube pre-amps tend to go) fed from SS mhdt COnstantine DAC for digital and Linn Axis tt with Denon dl103R cart for vinyl. Pure heaven! The best of both worlds (tube and SS) together in synergy.