At DSD I think Playback Designs are the Masters.
PCM They are on par with the very best R2R Dacs. I have heard better dacs at PCM then the merlot but these DACS are 3-5 times the price.
I’m comparing Analog MSB to Playback on PCM my self.
The Merlot was a little more transparent. You can hear the air from the singers mouth breathing during the music. however on the same file being played back on MSB you cant barely hear it you need to focus really well to capture it during playback. The MSB Platinum Dac was on par with transparency to the Merlot and at $40K Plus you would expect nothing less. But one Dac had more soul and density and space compared to the other.
The plucking of the strings are easily felt and heard on the Merlot, this just adds more to the dimensionality of the stage. The Analog would not portray this very well.
The PCM is more engaging on the Merlot, The MSB is a tad smoother/rounder similar to tubes and a little too laid back. It feels slower on the MSB then it does on the Merlot. The MSB Analog must be using a filter file to smoothen the sound but its mimicking a tube and not doing it very well.
Mind you the MSB Analog is twice the price to the Merlot.
Platinum is 4 times the price.
In terms of naturalism i think the Merlot is on par with very top R2R leagues.
It all comes to personal taste. I like a well balanced system. Not into Sugar Coated sound and sweetened milk. It has to sound real/natural, convincing and emotional.
Sure Dacs with Tubes and DHT sound emotionally involving but its using artificial sugar to your coffee.
I done with slow syrupy sound, But I like what tubes bring to the table. This is why my System consist of OTL and Field Coil Horn Speakers. The Transparency is unbelievable. Every nusance within the file will show up and presented in a smoother, easy to listen fatige free sound. The Dynamics is frightening when listening to hard core classical music :-) few times iv had the jump factor. Above all I want to cry and only some systems can acheve this.
You can put up the volume with the Merlot and the soundstage blooms larger it does not shout at you. Their is a sense of ease and relaxation. Its not being forced down your throat. I find it very emotional and addictive.
I cant help thinking how the system would sound if I Up sample everything at the server to DSD and send it straight to the Merlot DAC. I have yet to experiment on this during my free time. I cant do this on the Playback Design Syrah Server.
That is the basic way I can explain this. With out jumping into audiofool jargons.
I don’t understand this Audio Industry. I have read online reviews and fell into buyers remorse on certain products. I genuinely feel Playback Design Dacs are underrated.
Check this out: Copied from AK Design website:
The story of AKDesign
AKDesign was founded in 2003 by Andreas Koch and in 2013 Bert Gerlach joined the company after having worked together with Andreas since 2007.
The founder Andreas Koch, draws on more than 30 years of industry experience with renowned companies such as Studer, Dolby, Sony, Playback Designs and others. Bert Gerlach lead the engineering development at an optical flow measurement company and with his keen interest built remarkable audio products for home and professional use. As a team, Andreas and Bert complement each other perfectly and together they can tackle any aspect in electronic audio design and production.
References
AKDesign has now provided services to renowned audio companies such as Playback Designs, Nagra, Constellation Audio, DAISy, EMM Labs, Sony among others. It has a state-of-the-art SMT manufacturing line with a BGA rework station and provides manufacturing services to companies not only in the audio industry, but also in airospace and health industries with stringest quality requirements.
The key personnel possesses long standing experience from the beginning of the digital audio era and has provided many award winning designs.
