Music lovers (and reviewers) long for those listening moments when their entire being lights up with joy. For me, that divine spark surfaced unexpectedly one February afternoon when, late for an appointment, I dashed into the music room, searching for my keys. That’s when I heard a bit of the 24/96 WAV files of this issue’s Recording of the Month, conductor Andris Nelsons’s mammoth survey of the complete orchestral works of Richard Strauss, which I’d cued up on repeat to help Meitner’s MA3 integrated D/A converter ($10,500) settle in. I didn’t know which of Nelsons’s two orchestras, the Boston Symphony Orchestra or the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, was playing—what was clear, even from the hallway, was the glorious, silken smoothness of the strings. Those strings sounded so heavenly, so right, and so absolutely in tune with what a superb conductor can bring forth from the finest orchestras that I immediately knew my time with the MA3 would be a treat.
What it is
The MA3 is manufactured in Canada by Meitner Audio, the lower-priced brand of digital audio pioneer Ed Meitner’s EMM Labs. A trickledown product derived from EMM’s DV2 Integrated Converter ($30,000) and flagship DA2 V2 Stereo D/A Converter (also $30,000), the MA3 uses the same fully discrete, one-bit DAC circuit, with an internal conversion rate of 16×DSD (alternatively described as DSD1024); incoming data is upsampled to that frequency—1024 × “Red Book’s” 44.1kHz—then converted bit by bit. Meitner/EMM’s DSD technology stems from the company’s work with Sony/Philips to refine the SACD’s possibilities through innovations in DSD recording, mastering, and playback.1
“Integrated” means that the MA3 has a volume control—the same “VControl” used in the DV2. VControl works in the digital realm but is said to maintain the input signal without requantization; the result, EMM/Meitner claims, is “complete transparency at any volume setting, wide attenuation range, and no loss of audio resolution.”
The MA3 can do one important thing that the DV2 cannot: stream music from a network-attached storage device (NAS) or streaming service via its RJ45 (Ethernet) input. What services? The MA3 supports Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify, Deezer, and VTuner internet radio. The MA3 is certified Roon Ready, so it can effortlessly pair with an external Roon streamer/server such as a Nucleus+.
The MA3 supports PCM up to 24/192 and base-rate DSD (DSD64) at all its inputs. Its USB input supports PCM up to DXD frequencies (352.8/384kHz) and twice the basic DSD rate (DSD128) via DoP. At its USB and network inputs, it fully decodes MQA. MA3 can also play files stored on a USB stick plugged in to the “USB Media” port on the rear panel.
The MA3’s MFAST high-speed asynchronous jitter removal technology is said to work in tandem with the company’s custombuilt MCLK clock to completely remove jitter “from all digital sources.”2
While the DAC circuits
