Merrill Audio Veritas Amplifiers

Wow, some Hypex Ncore NC1200 modules in a fancy box for $12k. Such a deal.
 
Merrill is a nice guy. I wandered into his room at Axpona back in 2015. I heard sound coming from one of the rooms and I said, I have to see what that is. The Varita's where driving a set of $40k Sadurni horns the sound was incredibly good. Merrill is also a true audio enthusiast, into the hobby as much as building high quality gear. He certainly is an avid supporter of differentially balanced topology.

Later down the road he sent me a set of Varitas to listen to. I was using a Pass XP10 and X250 at the time. I put the Varitas right in my system in place of the X250. The Varitas were the best Class D I heard at that time, which was Bel Canto, Wyred4Sound, a few others not quite in that range. The Levinson 53 mono I liked better at several times the price. I was using Revel F52's for speakers, Merrill's power cords and the rest was my Clarus.

I agree with the couple of the things noted in the article that were, limits. I also took the Varitas to a friends house, switched my Pass back in a time or two, I wish I had plugged them in and just left them on. To be honest, I never achieved the great sound I heard at the show or mentioned in the review. With that being said, they were still the best Class D I had heard until the Levinson. I haven't heard the Rowland. After my audition I still liked the tonal saturation of the Pass better and the Veritas didn't have the PRAT of the Pass. The Veritas were more transparent than the Pass with better leading edges. All the reviews I've read on the Veritas have all been very positive. My friend had Salon 2's, the Veritas had no problem rocking them, handled large orchestral with ease.

Merrill was nice enough to send them for a listen I didn't want to hang on to them for too long but I kick myself for not leaving them in place and for a longer time. Even the review mentioned a lengthy warm up to come into their own.

Merrill senlls the Veritas with Stillpoint feet and a couple other tweaks I forget. These are also options on lower models. This is the first line of gear I've seen that. He's proud of his gear and wants it to sound the best it can. He does now have an even higher quality set of monoblocks, the name escapes me at this point. I was reading in a newsletter, or someplace, these higher end monoblocks are said to be quite a noticeable improvement over an already good product.
 
jap said:
Wow, some Hypex Ncore NC1200 modules in a fancy box for $12k. Such a deal.
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Don't be a hater Joe. :P
When you ran your long term business selling electronics, doing audio shows at $5-10k a pop, warranty returns, employees, etc, etc, etc. what was your mark up?
 
AFAIK, Hypex has enforced a minimum retail price on using oem nc1200 modules. You cannot find a ncore nc1200 based amp anywhere (apart from used market) for anything less than $10k.

We all know the cost of BOM and its retail markup for any hi-end amp manufacturer. The question is not about a ncore nc1200 module in a fancy case but how does it sound ? as far as I can tell, it sounds excellent - its very difficult to find a neutral amp at this price range.
 
AJ Soundfield said:
Beauty and value is in the eye of the beholder, but you evaded my actual question. Yes, a Timex is a lot better deal than a Rolex, but not to Rolex owners.
When dealing with luxury items, "deal" means different things to different folks.
Btw, are the PS Audios really NC1200s?
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The M700's use the 700ASC class D power module from a Danish company ICEPower , a review is in Feb Stereophile.
 
CPP said:
The M700's use the 700ASC class D power module from a Danish company ICEPower , a review is in Feb Stereophile.
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Ok, so apples vs oranges.

Btw, general comment, but aren't Magico, Wilson, etc just Morel and Scanspeak in a fancy box also, for a lot more than $12k ?
The list goes on....
 
The 700as and now the 1200as are just the newest versions from B&O though they may have now given that division a separate name. The PS mono amps are supposed to be quite good though especially at the prices they can be purchased at.
 
Jack said:
The 700as and now the 1200as are just the newest versions from B&O though they may have now given that division a separate name. The PS mono amps are supposed to be quite good though especially at the prices they can be purchased at.
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Quite possibly, but a better gauge for the Merrill NC1200 would be vs another NC1200 based amp, IMHO.
The PSAs do seem to be very reasonably priced.
 
One model down in terms of power. PS though has put in their own input buffer like Nord did where as Mike is using the factory provided buffer. Nuprime/Nuforce has been using this method with Class D modules for some time. You can to a point "tune" via the input buffer.

https://icepower.dk/products/amplifier-power-modules/as-series/

AJ their are a couple of others like Atsah and Bel Canto but same general price range.
 
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