#ULTA MERIDIAN PRO#

My first impressions of the Meridian were of a smooth sound with superb transparency and soundstage depthВ—even in comparison with my longtime reference, the PS Audio DirectStream DAC, which excels in those areas. I began by using the Ultra DAC without a preamp and with its EQ disabled, its Long reconstruction filter, and its variable output mode, while listening to a variety of recordings at different sample rates and bit depths. All of these buttons are duplicated on the full-function remote control.

Pressing Menu lets you adjust the bass, treble, and channel balance, absolute polarity, and a function called LipSync, which adds a delay to synchronize sound with video images you can also set the Ultra DAC to fixed or variable outputs. The front panel has large, square buttons labeled Source, DSP for selecting among three reconstruction filters (Long, Medium, Short), Display (to change the information shown), and Off a narrow, rectangular Mute button and, under the fold-down panel, keys for Volume Up and Down, Setup, and Menu. To keep the noise floor low, the power supply is a conventional linear rather than a switching supply the front-panel display is also electrically 'quiet,' using a static (non-multiplexed), 20-character, dot-matrix LCD. The output stage incorporates 'Hierarchical Converter technology ,' which Meridian says employs 'multiple converters to increase temporal resolution while also reducing noise and quantization errors.' The Ultra DAC has both balanced and single-ended audio outputs and features dual-mono DAC cards, each built on an eight-layer circuit board with low-impedance ground planes and with its own multiple regulated power supply. A dedicated card with a high-current clock as well as FIFO buffering is claimed to minimize phase noise and ensure the lowest possible jitter, all jitter components being folded down below 0.5Hz. Constructed with a card-frame topology, the Ultra DAC offers every digital input you might wish, all capable of accepting 24-bit data: a USB 2.0 input for connection to a computer, two AES/EBU XLR inputs, two BNC coaxial inputs, two RCA S/PDIF inputs, two optical TosLink inputs, one Meridian Speakerlink input, and an Ethernet port for connection to a Meridian Sooloos System.

With its fold-down front panel, the Ultra DAC's large, handsome, black, aluminum case looks identical to that of Meridian's 808i.2 Signature Reference, though it lacks analog inputs and a CD transport. (he remains the chairman of Meridian's board), Meridian's chief technical officer, Richard Hollinshead, now heads up the design team and was responsible for the subject of this review, the Ultra DAC ($23,000). However, as Bob is now involved full-time with MQA Ltd.

#ULTA MERIDIAN PRO#

As I mentioned in my review eight years ago of Meridian Audio's 808.2 Signature Reference CD player, I have long been impressed by the British company's componentsВ—in fact, ever since the early 1980s, when I purchased a Meridian 101 preamplifier, followed by my very positive experiences with Meridian's MCD Pro and 208 CD players, 518 digital audio processor, D600 and DSP8000 digital active loudspeakers, and, most recently, the Prime and Explorer D/A headphone amplifiers.ДЄll of the Meridian products we have reviewed until now have been the work of a design team led by Meridian cofounder Bob Stuart.

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