Located right at the heart of Starbucks in Bernardsville along Morristown Rd, in front of Bernards High School, which is behind Mine Mountain and Old Colony Roads, Merill Audio Advanced Technology Labs is a value-leader in the nCore segment.
Of the Class D implementations, nCore of all the Class D implementations may be the one to give Devialet's Class ADH a run for the money in the amplifier space.
Coupling to a Boston Acoustics M350 might make a logical choice for the Merill Audio Taranis.
Priced at $2500, Merill Audio's Taranis happily brings the price-point down below their previous Thor and Veritas offerings. We initially chose the Revel Ultimate Studio 2 ($15998), and later considered the MartinLogan Montis ($9995) for the Merill.
With 400 watts at 8 ohms (600W at 4), in stereo, with S/N 130dB, and THD < 0.005%, Merill's Taranis offers a Cylon's eye of possibility of putting together a separates stack, under $5K, including speakers, under $7500.00.
Coupling the Taranis with Oppo's HA-1 ($1,199.00 USD) and Apple's MacBook Pro 13" ($1299 USD) will just hit the ball-park, although you'll have to go scrounging for some RCA interconnects.
AntiCables 4.2 RCA silver-gold interconnects ($265 USD/pair shielded) should give both the luxury-metal fiend and the tinfoil-hat geek in you some joy.
System: Merill Audio Taranis nCore (Class D) Stereo Amplifier. (400W x 2.) $2500.00 USD
Apple MacBook Pro 13" Laptop (Retina Display) - Stereo Source $1399.00 USD
Oppo HA-1 Headphone Amplifier - Preamp - DAC $1199.00 USD
Speakers ... TBD
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$5000.00 USD
What about speakers? You should be able to pick up a pair of PSB Stratus Gold speakers for $500 USD, if you're lucky, although $800-1000 is more common. $5500 is what the B&W 801 Matrix 2 retailed for, so that is a good target price. You'll be happy with the Montis, we imagine.
For speaker cables, definitely go with the AntiCables, Level 3. $232.00 USD. 8 foot pair. Or you can bi-wire at level 2 for $212 ($20 less).
Now, $2500.00 USD for 400W x 2 of generous stereo sound is pretty good value. Add the Oppo HA-1 and the Mac Retina 13" for your digital source, and you're still just at $5K USD. Devialet's D400 is $17,495.00 USD, for comparison, which only does 24/192, although admittedly rather well, indeed. You'd still need to add a Mac to that, btw.
While we really prefer 1000W with a leading pair of speakers, such as Revel Studio, the 400W that the Merill supplies is twice that of a traditional "power amp" (200W), really, and really two-thirds of the way to a Classé CA-M600 set (600W ea., $14,000 USD/pair). Admittedly 40% of 1000W isn't 100%, but since Sanders gets away with 400W driving the panels of their 10C in shows - in conventional rooms, you'll be OK with 400.
Let the games begin.
Product: Bryston 28B SST2, 1000W, $15,000 USD / pair
Product: Class CA-M600, 600W, $14,000 / pair
Product: Merill Audio Taranis Stereo Power Amplifier.
Price: $2500.00 USD
Address: 80 Morristown Rd #3a, Bernardsville, NJ 07924, United States
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