NEWS: Meridian Releases The Explorer Pocket-Sized USB DAC - Page 7

 

Me too. Had to give it a spin. Mine will be here on Friday. Perfect for spending some quality time with it over the weekend. 

Just hooked mine up.  5 minutes in, and I considered it "thin" compared to my well broken in DragonFly.  Its getting better as I listen though.  Those big caps will take awhile I imagine.  I did not find much time related changes with the DACPort or the DragonFly.

 

I will let it run in for a couple of days and try some listening testing Friday.

 

In my opinion the DragonFly mashes the DACPort hands down coming from my laptop.  I am pretty sure its the ASync vs. AdaptiveSync of the DACPort products.  I do really like the volume control on the DACPort though.

Sent an email to Meridian asking for the output impedance. I see no other reason not to reply than the value being something they want to hide. Anything under 2 and I'll buy one the next day. Hoping for a reply soon. Hopefully it's just an oversight, the DragonFly specs don't include it either but the value is less than 1. Crosstalk and noise floor specs would be nice too, but output impedance is the critical one. Oh and as for that review mentioning 16, that's just the reviewer reading the official specs wrong. The power output is stated calculated at 16 ohms, that's not the spec many posters here are wondering about.

Other than that, I have to say I'm very impressed by the component choices Meridian has made from a bill of materials point of view. They are clearly taking a risk on this product as the XMOS chip is pretty expensive from what I've read. I'd be willing to bet margins are lower on this compared to the similarly priced DragonFly which was already a fairly low margin product in hifi market terms.

 

Best of luck.  I couldn't even get that info from Steve Silberman (VP of Dev for AQ and the guy in charge of DF development), he appeared to genuinely not know.  It's a mystery to me why this is not considered an important spec considering how so many users will likely be using upmarket IEMs with this.

 

The DF does work with Android devices using USB Audio Recorder PRO.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/595071/android-phones-and-usb-dacs/1680#post_9151794

 

As long as the USB host is not enabled on the Nexus 4, it can't work with a USB peripheral like a standard USB DAC.

http://www.head-fi.org/t/595071/android-phones-and-usb-dacs/1170#post_8985601

Ok ordered one, this is what I have been waiting for so long. Meridian always was leading in digital music playback since THE beginning of times. The co-founder of M is a psychoacoutical specialist and I always loved their sound, so this explorer should be the bomb!

Also having a portable ultra high end solution. Will mate my X230 pretty well. grins...

Ordered mine! Will be here tomorrow, My speaker rig is dominated by Meridian 500 series gear and I've had them a long time now - big fan of what this company does.

 

I'm going to use it to feed my Icon Audio HP8 from my laptop. Very interested to see how this stacks up against my Audio GD Ref 5.2 and NFB15.1. The latter is a much fairer comparison but my hopes are high - Meridian is a mainstream player of the first order and not the sort of company to mess up - I'm just surprised the price is so competitive.

 

Very interested to hear if anyone tries this with a power conditioner like the iFi Micro - whether it adds anything.

When did you order it and from whom?

Precisely why I was asking for the output impedance. Everyone was "correcting" me, saying that it's stated as 16, but it's clearly not - as you've explained here. Thanks.

If it's driverless on OSX it will work on iPad. Any USB audio product that can be supplied enough power (and doesn't need drivers in OSX) will work with iPad.

I'm pretty eager to see how the digital outputs will mate with my DSP speakers. The analogue section at the line output seems to be entry ticket to Meridian audiodome for my tube amp and more, as a bonus it has a headphone amp too! ^^

That sounds good... except for the power part. Has anyone actually tested them with android yet?

I've not encountered a single DAC that will NOT work with iPad if fed enough power. If that means a powered outboard hub, then so be it. But every DAC (and I've tried now about a dozen) have worked. Driver-necessary DACs may be different. I've plugged into DAC after DAC and had NO trouble at all. As long as they get power. Battery-powered DACs are a bit different because some power their internal DAC chips via USB, some via internal batteries. Only then does there seem to be some difficulty, but that has in 100% of the cases I've encountered, been fixed with outboard power.

I'm waiting along with you. If I find one out in the open, I'll test it for you. I'm eager to know.