Mighty fine Meitner

Ed Meitner is famous for the ‘custom DAC’ and crafting his own tech for 30 years. His latest model is a chip offthe old digital block

- Ed Meitner

DETAILS

PRODUCT Meitner Audio MA3

ORIGIN Canada

TYPE Network-attached/ USB DAC

WEIGHT 7.4kg DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 435 x 92 x 400mm

FEATURES

• 16x DSD MDAC2 DACs coupled with proprietary MDAT2 upsampling
• Bespoke VControl volume adjustment
• Built-in network interface for music streaming service integration

DISTRIBUTOR Audio Visual Technology Solutions

WEBSITE emmlabs.com; av-techsolutions. co.uk

Step back twenty or so years ago and standalone digital-to-analog converters were fast becoming an endangered species. The breed had a brief moment in the sun in the early Nineties, with almost all CD player brands fitting digital outputs, but until the advent of USB audio, the add-on digital box was very much on the wane. Now, with the rise of digital streaming, network-attached DACs are more popular than ever – the gift that keeps on giving, for hi-fi brands and buyers alike.

Streaming DACs have very quickly become digital sources in themselves, able to play music collections kept remotely on network-attached storage – and that’s before you count legacy CD and DVD playback, plus computer connectivity via USB. Just as we have a burgeoning elite breed of ‘superdeck’ turntables that have been created specifically to service the vinyl revival, so too there’s now a new deluge of ‘superDACs’ including the £9,750 Meitner MA3 that you see before you here.