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Auralic Merak. I tested the monos' mettle with first the Swedish colleagues of Alarma Man and their album Love Forever once again beginning in the bassment. In the title track "Cabin in the sky", the fat bass motif during the refrain—if that's what you can call it given that these Scandinavian post rockers don't really abide by any conventional sound structures—is quickly drowned out or devolves into gruel. After multiple A/Bs against my 200 watt into 8Ω Audionet amps which are formidably quick and accurate bass champs, I noted that neither on extension (here the Auralic might have enjoyed a small edge) nor on pitch precision or definition these two mono pairs gave each other any ground. Both portrayed the low ranges with the type of mass, weight and simultaneous transparency and precision you'd expect from top-notch power amps.


Even clocking the gas pedal to imprint songs like "Intro" or the fluffy "Something Good" from 2012's Mercury Music Prize-winning alt-J f virtually directly on the brain (An Awesome Wave), the class D blocks sent volley after volley of angular dry bass-drum transients towards the listener in championship form. Explosions in the Sky's Take Care, Take Care Take Care (a strong reco for lovers of atmospheric and varied instrumentals reminiscent of film music) and its "Trembling Hands" cut then made for just the right stuff to test fundamental grip and shove not only in the bass.

It's a melange of constantly looping speech song, dense guitar sound, driving snare trills and bass as the proper supporting cast which especially at higher levels just must—and here we go again—generate that massive yet stable and involving wall of sound which has individual 'bricks' clearly visible to not be drowned out by the whole. The Merak monos handled this challenge with such bravura that even the most critical of listeners should have been content. Granted, this was a routine inspection for monaural amps. Nobody acquires a multi-thou pair solely to blow translucent smoke rings. I have to confess though that I forgot how I was listening to 'merely' €5.000 kit. Quickly into the session I gravitated into the type of response one usually only gets from far costlier gear like my €8.000 German Audionets. This recognition didn't solely arise from how well the Meraks aced this particular test. Let's mention also alt-J's An Awesome Wave, a record that veritably brims with ideas to make for a highly commendable mix of Indie, folk and electronica with a dash of post-rock.

"Interlude" essentially consists of just two overlaid vocal tracks with a bit of reverb. Not only here did I notice that the Meraks shared genetic coding with their Taurus Pre stable mate. The first overlap occurred with the particular purity or blackness of the background and the concomitant contrast this created whereby the vocals separated out in spatial relief against the rear to support this pleasant illusion of 3D live presences. Another shared ground was the tonal balance of the midband. Vocals struck me as simultaneously grounded and reasonably warm and impeccably open and airy. The latter was particularly relevant on the easily reluctant and mangled voice of Joe Newman whose special overtone content marks the man. Third were exemplary sibilants and (though somewhat less apparent on this cut) 'f' sounds.


Unpleasant hiss was never an issue with my hyper-resolving Thiel CS3.7 and even the Funk MTX which is a pinch more offensive in the highs than the Taurus Pre. Yet nothing was skipped over or obscured either. All sounded as it should have – eminently natural.

Relative to the upper registers, I favored the monos slightly over the Taurus Pre since, though by tendency minimally soft rather than forward or microdynamically electrified, the amps felt a bit more open. Relative to both my Audionet and Fonel Emotion amps the Meraks booked their own points. Particularly over the straight-arrow Thiels my work-horse amps can get a bit more artificial, hard and silvery on high. This had me enjoy the Auralics' added plus of distortion-free relaxed purity on Myrna Loy's "Reelrose". Its poignantly glowing piano touches had individual tones feel more colorful and less spry as though the Merak twins somehow enhanced their decays with more freedom or looseness. This complete absence of sterility—cliché though it should be by now—which haunts transistor amps was clearly a major strength of the Meraks.


That said, John Coltrane's "Kulu Sé Mama" from the eponymous album suddenly had me root for the Audionets again. They were the more incisive and informative about the polyrhythmic transient-spiked ultra airy cymbals, xylophone, rattles and similar percussion. They teased out the upper registers more finely, analytical and electrifying. As a consequence this somewhat stricter reading of the Germans connected me more to the piece than the Meraks. Those were a bit less explicit and thus also less demanding. Tables turned again when the Meraks created the more realistic saxophone during the course of the same track. The sax was fatter and more sonorous than over the Audionets which in the midband seemed to paint more with water colors than oil. The believable timbres of acoustic instruments, their lack of porosity, the absence of monochromatic greyness and tonal incongruencies all were further strong points for today's testers.


In general I predict that particularly in conjunction with fresh, microdynamically edgy and well-resolved speakers the Auralic Meraks ought to be true pearls though less so with mostly laid-back darkly voiced transducers. Whilst a common prejudice about class D amps is 'digital' hardness, annoying sharpness or similar (even though class D per se has nothing to do with digital), my own experience rather points in a different direction.