Meitner MA-3 DAC

I guess Meitner simply isnt buying enough positive reviews. Mine is looking and sounding pretty damn good.

Mike, unless, after having played with it for a while, you do not believe it to be a quality product?
 
dznutz said:
I guess Meitner simply isnt buying enough positive reviews. Mine is looking and sounding pretty damn good.

Mike, unless, after having played with it for a while, you do not believe it to be a quality product?
Click to expand...

No, just zero interest. I don’t get it.
 
I find that surprising too. Great feature set, superb sound, stellar reputation. And the MA-1 was a big seller.

Maybe the design doesn’t do it for people paying 10K for a DAC.
 
Kuoppis said:
I find that surprising too. Great feature set, superb sound, stellar reputation. And the MA-1 was a big seller.

Maybe the design doesn’t do it for people paying 10K for a DAC.
Click to expand...

Not sure either; My guess is the product was launched during a pandemic and maybe that had something to do with it...who knows;

The Meitner MA-3 reminds me what I loved / missed about the MA-1; super dynamic, clear, deep soundstage, but overall a very natural tone; I recently got into analog with a decent first table, a Mofi UltraDeck, and have compared a few LPs to local digital copies of same albums; I can hear that analog goodness and nature coming from the MA-3 (overall I prefer the DAC).

The Roon endpoint / streamer works 100% perfectly- never one issue with network gremlins;

I absolutely love the Lumin U1, however, and can extract an even better sound from the MA-3 by using either AES or USB from the Lumin U1 vs the ethernet renderer inside the MA-3;

I am in the camp that a dedicated streamer is best; Don't get me wrong, the native MA-3 performance is excellent and is representative of a top tier DAC, but there is something extra special with the Lumin as the digital bridge; It's just like an extra dollop of something I can't quite put my finger on, but that I can't live without.

Meitner is serious hardware and the company is stellar to deal with; Happy in Pittsburgh :)
 
dpac996 said:
Not sure either; My guess is the product was launched during a pandemic and maybe that had something to do with it...who knows;

The Meitner MA-3 reminds me what I loved / missed about the MA-1; super dynamic, clear, deep soundstage, but overall a very natural tone; I recently got into analog with a decent first table, a Mofi UltraDeck, and have compared a few LPs to local digital copies of same albums; I can hear that analog goodness and nature coming from the MA-3 (overall I prefer the DAC).

The Roon endpoint / streamer works 100% perfectly- never one issue with network gremlins;

I absolutely love the Lumin U1, however, and can extract an even better sound from the MA-3 by using either AES or USB from the Lumin U1 vs the ethernet renderer inside the MA-3;

I am in the camp that a dedicated streamer is best; Don't get me wrong, the native MA-3 performance is excellent and is representative of a top tier DAC, but there is something extra special with the Lumin as the digital bridge; It's just like an extra dollop of something I can't quite put my finger on, but that I can't live without.

Meitner is serious hardware and the company is stellar to deal with; Happy in Pittsburgh :)
Click to expand...

It sounds like you are in a good place Deepak! I am surprised to hear you moved away from your Bricasti DAC, but then again, I am not surprised :P
 
I went to back to look at the feature set of the MA-3 and, from a product perspective, it looks like a really nice piece.
 
thyname said:
It sounds like you are in a good place Deepak! I am surprised to hear you moved away from your Bricasti DAC, but then again, I am not surprised :P
Click to expand...

Hi SkeerDee! So you're surprised and not surprised with my personal audio fun? Sounds like you have some issues to work out ;)
Either way, happy to meet your expectations and such.
 
dpac996 said:
Hi SkeerDee! So you're surprised and not surprised with my personal audio fun? Sounds like you have some issues to work out ;)
Either way, happy to meet your expectations and such.
Click to expand...

It was a joke. We are all on this for fun, right?:yahoo1:
 
dpac996 said:
The Meitner MA-3 reminds me what I loved / missed about the MA-1; super dynamic, clear, deep soundstage, but overall a very natural tone;

I am in the camp that a dedicated streamer is best; Don't get me wrong, the native MA-3 performance is excellent and is representative of a top tier DAC, but there is something extra special with the Lumin as the digital bridge; It's just like an extra dollop of something I can't quite put my finger on, but that I can't live without.
Click to expand...
great report.
same here, using mine as a dac only with external bridge.

the footers of the ma-3 are a bad joke.
i replaced them with 4 wilson pedestal and it plays levels above now. more authorative, more flash, better bass and 3d.
 
I sell MA3 in a very large country:))) it took quite a while to actually start getting orders. I guess pandemic and not so extensive marketing are the reasons for a slow start. It took me quite a few home demos before people started looking at it. Then I have done some comparisons against for example Bartok. Now people are starting to buy the DAC, which I consider is one of the greatest values on the market. I personally preferred it to many other DACs in its price range and even more expensive, like the example above.
You can look up Meitner MA3 vs Bartok on youtube comparisons made by a Korean dealer and you can listen. In my comparison in live, i can confirm the youtube sounds more or less like what I have heard.

One client compared to ma1 v2 and ordered immediately, the difference there is not subtle at all. The main difference is the dynamics and attack that was sort of not great on the earlier models.
Compared to the combo DV2+NS1, which I have for myself, well, as expected it was never meant to sound like this combo at more than triple price. However, all the properties of Edd Meitner's sound are there. It is a NATURALLY sounding DAC, very dynamic, good bass handling (both volume and clarity). Real musicians playing classic instruments will appreciate the DAC.

In my approach, I try to compare to the live sound, I do not really care analog, digital and so on, for me there is only one reference, :))))
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top