NEWS: Meridian Releases The Explorer Pocket-Sized USB DAC - Page 43

Nice to see Meridian improve the design. Much better now, but it still needs to be said the Explorer remains not an optimal choice for most IEM users. An output impedance of 5 still not good enough; for example iPhone 4S (~1ohm) sounds clearly better with IEMs than the iPod Classic (~5ohms) with 16 ohm armatures with a wildly swinging impedance curve. IEM users are still better served by other products, but Meridian has increased compatibility a lot and kudos for that!

Tyll: Thanks for the great article. I have a technical question: if a low-ohm output amplifier shorts (and most likely breaks), will it damage connected headphones too or is the damage restricted to the amplifier?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyll Hertsens 

I have received the revised version and the output impedance is indeed 5 Ohm.  

 

Ken Forsythe of Meridian has provided me with a statement which includes:

 

"If any customers feel that their experience may have been affected by the headphones they are using with their Explorer then they should contact Meridian at explorer@meridian.co.uk telling us their name and shipping address; where they bought their Explorer, its serial number, how they use it (which outputs, OS, etc.) and the headphones models they enjoy, and we will get right back to them. Meridian is always happy to engage with enthusiastic customers."

 

The new unit does sound better to me.  Full story here: http://www.innerfidelity.com/content/meridian-explorer-case-study-effects-output-impedance

Great article Tyll, you're the man! It sure shows how Professional and mature a good reviewer should be.

I'll keep my high output explorer as it sounds good to me ^^

Quote:

Originally Posted by vrln 

 An output impedance of 5 still not good enough

 

Tyll: Thanks for the great article. I have a technical question: if a low-ohm output amplifier shorts (and most likely breaks), will it damage connected headphones too or is the damage restricted to the amplifier?

I agree that I'd like to see portable devices with < or = 2 Ohm output impedance.

Depends on what gets damaged in the amp.  You might get lucky and blow the mains fuse, but more likely you pop a transistor in one side and it rails to the other...which would blow up your cans.  Anyway, it's a good idea for manufacturers to build in a little protection with a bit of output impedance. 

The alternative is to have some kind of over-current protection circuit, but that will make the amp a bit more expensive, and you run the risk of making not sound as good.

First I want to say thanks to Purrin for his honest review and findings. Learned a lot from it.

Also thanks to Tyll for the review on the old and new ME. Very metodical, informative and awesome information to have in general when dealing with amps.
 

Still I wonder a little - supposedly Meridian knew about it and was going to make necessary changes. Why hasn't an official statement come out on the homepage (can't find one). One logical explanation to me would be that if they made it then people will wonder what version they got as they seem to be identical (although you could probably see the difference in the serial number).

I hope that information how to tell them apart comes out otherwise how would one know which one you have bought, some will probably be sold/bought second hand.

Also I think it would be appreciative to inform all those that have bought the older ME by email stating about what the change is about or that a change has been made (but this could also be very troublesome as not everyone could follow the technicalities) and about a possibility to exchange.

Anyway, thanks to Meridian for dealing with the impedance issue.

'5' works for me - 32-ohm cans and all. All up, I'd say the consumer is the winner with so many good - and relatively inexpensive - choices out there. It's just as shame that it had to wait until the economy turned to shinola and many of us have more important real-world concerns than which ~$400 DAC to buy - to those without such concerns, I say buy one of everything.  :D

With a cheap DMM and a pair of alligator clips from Rat Shack, it's not difficult to do the measurement. Maybe Tyll can write an easy guide on how to do this?

Ok. I hope Meridian takes care of me. Bought the unit from Todd two weeks ago. Asked Todd via email if my unit was the revised version. Never got a reply.

I had written to Meridian support last week and heard back this morning.  They said that they are collating information and that it will take some time for them to catch up, and they asked for my patience while assuring me that they will get back to me about this.

It sounded to me as if they are dealing with it and will keep customers happy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by netdog 

I had written to Meridian support last week and heard back this morning.  They said that they are collating information and that it will take some time for them to catch up, and they asked for my patience while assuring me that they will get back to me about this.

 

It sounded to me as if they are dealing with it and will keep customers happy.

That's good to know.  I have not heard back yet, but it's less than 24 hrs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by purrin 

With a cheap DMM and a pair of alligator clips from Rat Shack, it's not difficult to do the measurement. Maybe Tyll can write an easy guide on how to do this?

I have a cheapo DMM.  How do you take the ME apart?

Quote:

Originally Posted by HiFiGuy528 

 

I have a cheapo DMM.  How do you take the ME apart?

You don't need to take it apart. You have to measure the output signal with no load, then put a load (let's say 50 Ohms) on the output and measure the drop in voltage. then you have to do a little math to calculate the output impedance. Or you can go to this page and plug in the numbers and it will calculate it for you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HiFiGuy528 

That's good to know.  I have not heard back yet, but it's less than 24 hrs.

I've written twice - first about 10 days ago, then again just about 24 hours.  No response yet.

I contacted my dealer, Music Matters via Amazon, they replied in about a day that they would change my Explorer for a new one (they didn't want me to contact Meridian myself, they were just interested in knowing what headphones I tried). I don't even expect a reply from Meridian to my configuration-related question - it's been perhaps almost a month since I asked them.