[TadMorose]

Has anyone used their Explorer 2 with an amp? What kind? Did it improve the sound?

I'm using mine with Schiit Magni 3. Huge improvement in sound.

 

[snatex]

I'm using mine with Schiit Magni 3. Huge improvement in sound.

How do you connect the Meridian to the Schiit? What interconnect do you use? What source and headphones have you tried with this setup?

 

[TheSnafu]

Has anyone used their Explorer 2 with an amp? What kind? Did it improve the sound?

I use Explorer2 with my speaker system: Tidal + Asus laptop (passive cooling+SSD) -> Meridian -> Copland CTA301 mkII -> poweramps + speakers
Explorer improves sound close to cd-quality (vs Copland CDA822) just like any decent DAC would do ( + it has MQA, made it difference or not ).

Imo Meridian is very, very good in that purpose. i tested it against Marantz HD1 and Project Pre Box S2 Digital and didn't see reason to update.
My problem with Explorer2 is that updating it to next level is going to be in 2k€ price range (looking for Denafrips Pontus or something similar).

Works very well with my Oppo PM3's too

 

[TadMorose]

How do you connect the Meridian to the Schiit? What interconnect do you use? What source and headphones have you tried with this setup?

I use this interconnect to connect Meridian to the Schiit:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B00LM2Y2U4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Source is my HP laptop with Tidal as well as foobar2000 with ASIO plugin.

Headphones are Sennheiser HD-280 Pro and HIFIMAN HE-400i.

 

[Lifted Andreas]

игровые аппараты играть бесплатно черти

Please keep this forum in English only so everyone can understand.

Thank you.

 

[Dan Fuentes]

Que?

 

[Left Channel]

Please keep this forum in English only so everyone can understand.

Thank you.

Apparently that was spam, and has been deleted by a mod. You can help by removing the link from your quote.

Que?

¿Como?

 

[kkl10]

Got the ME2 today. Connected to my mini PC, I'm getting extremely low volume from the HP-out to my 300 ohms GMP 400 (just slightly more hard to drive than the HD6xxs but not too different). And I don't mean it gets loud, just not very much; I mean there's barely any sound at all even with volume settings at max...

PC runs Manjaro linux, checked all settings to make sure that everything is ok. Not usure if there's some specific configuration I have to do for this one... Line out to my amp is working fine...

Not sure what's going on... Anyone knows what might be the issue? Do I need to update the firmware or something?

I'm tempted to connect the GMP directly to the line-out at this point...

EDIT: OK first impressions of the sound. Better line-out than onboard. As expected, there's a small improvement by powering the device with a battery instead of the PC USB bus (slightly cleaner and clearer).

 

[BobSmith8901]

Got the ME2 today. Connected to my mini PC, I'm getting extremely low volume from the HP-out to my 300 ohms GMP 400 (just slightly more hard to drive than the HD6xxs but not too different). And I don't mean it gets loud, just not very much; I mean there's barely any sound at all even with volume settings at max...

PC runs Manjaro linux, checked all settings to make sure that everything is ok. Not usure if there's some specific configuration I have to do for this one... Line out to my amp is working fine...

Not sure what's going on... Anyone knows what might be the issue? Do I need to update the firmware or something?

I'm tempted to connect the GMP directly to the line-out at this point...

EDIT: OK first impressions of the sound. Better line-out than onboard. As expected, there's a small improvement by powering the device with a battery instead of the PC USB bus (slightly cleaner and clearer).

Not sure if this may help: Did you install the Meridian Explorer2 driver that also installs the little Meridian USB Control Panel in the system tray (not sure that's possible with your Linux install...?--there should be a little black icon with a white "M" in there...if your ME2 is connected it should have a volume control, see if that might make a difference.

Edit: Just to make sure you have things set up right: In my setup I have the USB out from my PC going into the ME2 USB, then line out from ME2 to my Magni2U, then listening out of the headphone jack on the Magni2. Not sure if you had a similar setup and might be listening out the headphone jack on the ME2 itself.

 

[kkl10]

I don't think there are any drivers or software for Linux... only for Windows and Mac.

 

[BobSmith8901]

I don't think there are any drivers or software for Linux... only for Windows and Mac.

Maybe that's the issue with the volume. Looking on the Meridian OS requirements it says Linux kernel 2.6.37 or later, not sure how that applies in your case. Note: I edited my earlier post (a second time to make it clear I am listening out the headphone out of the MAGNI2U (my bad...) but I have the feeling you've got yours installed correctly config-wise.

 

[kkl10]

This is my setup.

From ME2 HP jack: PC USB (with and without battery) - ME2 HP out - GMP 400 (extremely low volume no matter what)

Using line out: PC USB (with and without battery)- ME2 line out - SMSL TPAxx HP jack - GMP 400

The jack of my headphone is too large, so I can't have the headphone jack and line out populated at the same time on the ME2. When I connect the headphone directly to the ME2, I need to remove the line out cable first... and vice versa.

 

[kkl10]

Maybe that's the issue with the volume. Looking on the Meridian OS requirements it says Linux kernel 2.6.37 or later, not sure how that applies in your case. Note: I edited my earlier post (a second time to make it clear I am listening out the headphone out of the MAGNI2U (my bad...) but I have the feeling you've got yours installed correctly config-wise.

No prob. Running hardened kernel 4.12 somethings somethings. Don't expect that to be the issue, but can try with a slightly more recent one just to be sure.

Thanks for trying to help.

 

[BobSmith8901]

Not sure I understand your point... Are you saying that I need to have the line out cable connected at the same time?

This is my setup.

From ME2 HP jack: PC USB (with and without battery) - ME2 HP out - GMP 400 (extremely low volume no matter what)

Using line out: PC USB (with and without battery)- ME2 line out - SMSL TPAxx HP jack - GMP 400

The jack of my headphone is too large, so I can't have the headphone jack and line out populated at the same time on the ME2. When I connect the headphone directly to the ME2, I need to remove the line out cable first... and vice versa.

EDIT: Ah, nevermind. Saw your second edit. I was indeed puzzled for a moment.

Sorry about that.

I guess if you've tried both of the standard configs it must be some other incompatibility. Good luck and I'm really curious now as to what the problem is!

 

[kkl10]

Just noticed that the lights don't change when I play different sampling rates. I followed these instructions to set up bit-perfect audio stream in DeaDBeef. Not entirely sure this works, but I wonder if this might be related...