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Cherry/Job 225. With my 92.5dB soundkaos Wave 40 widebanders with silver-transformer Raal ribbons, I consume at most 1 watt of power in the seat since my median levels are ~70dB for maximally 90dB peaks (a lot of modern recordings don't even have 20dB of dynamic range). My customary 10-watt FirstWatt SIT1 are thus Rolls-Royce. Perfectly adequate. By contrast the Merak and Maraschino monos are he-man brawny. Having also the $1'695 globally delivered Job 225 from Goldmund on deck, that 1MHz fully DC-coupled amp turned out to be a nearly perfect class A/B stand-in for Cherry sonics. The effect versus my SITs is a brightening of the stage lights and a virtual tightening of all strings (without raising pitch). This creates more transient snap, bite and crunch. It also makes for a cooler more quicksilvery temperament*.
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* Here it's fair to mention our friend damping factor. The zero NFB single-stage SIT amps have higher output impedance. With this type speaker that can be an advantage as it can otherwise sound a bit overdamped. This becomes more of an issue with 100dB Lowther-type drivers which might prematurely roll off in the bass to perform better with an otherwise underdamped tube amp. Standard big woofers meanwhile tend to benefit from higher damping, hence the general popularity of class D high-feedback low Z-out amplifier modules in active subwoofers. Which is exactly what's in my Zu Submission subwoofer tower - a Hypex UcD plate amp.
Maraschinos atop AURALic Merak, Goldmund/Job 225 at left
On a Louis Winsberg Jaleo track, Flamenco palmas and machine-gun foot stomps with blistering guitar rasgueados, then fiery marimba demonstrated this leading-edge paprika. So did Anoushka Shankar's Traveler where sitar parallels piano on an atypical Flamenco bulerías. Claude Chalhoub's magical neo-classical Diwan string orchestra had plenty of flageolet brilliance and high separation like sculpted ripples on water. The burnished wooden elements of tone took a back seat to attack wiriness. This also diminished the bella-voce legato flair of stacking fade-outs. As tends to be true for highly articulated cooler crystallized readings, low-level intelligibility was excellent just like I'd already noted on the desk top. Even complex multi-layered stuff with plenty of spatial recording trickery like Tanja Tzarovska's No Record of Wrong retained top-notch visibility into ambient reflections.

iMac with PureMusic, SOtM USB bridge, fully balanced signal path with Metrum Hex and Nagra Jazz to amps
Gipsy Unity between devilish fiddler Markus Apostol and equally breakneck Angelo Debarre on Manouche guitar duelling over impossibly rapid Romanian cymbalom showcased the PRaT action of taut timing where convoluted beats are like nails not finger pads on glass. This type of on-edge timing never works as well in a humid languorous atmosphere like the prototypical fireside SET feast. Bomb-shelter speaker boxes of massive aluminium, synthetic stone or otherwise inert high mass tend to have a similarly dry percussive quality that's been honed for reflexes. Where the Maraschinos compensate a bit is with their already discussed top end openness. Whilst not as airy as my €4'250 Crayon Audio CFA-1.2 integrated or Bakoon AMP-12R, the baby cherries do the air thing better than most class D I've encountered.


From the above you'll have already extrapolated well-sorted staging where everything's mapped out clearly and localized very specifically. You'll also have made the connection between beat fidelity—the British pace, rhythm and timing—and tautness rather than relaxed flow. Whilst hifi discourse worships frequency response graphs, this type of performance feel isn't really represented on seemingly scientific/objective measurements. Impulse response might hint at it. Beyond that we get 'intangibles' as far as test gear is concerned.

For another grand and twice the power you could pursue the competitors from AURALiC. To remain in the realm of intangibles whilst being perfectly audible, those would give you less tension and more weight on the tonal bloom portion. From designer Xuanqian we know that they strategically modified their UcD400 power modules to lower percentage points of the stock 4th-10th harmonic distortion. From the various FirstWatt amps which are either 2nd or 3rd-order dominant I've learnt to think in corresponding triode/pentode flavors. The Meraks would seem to contain more 2nd-order than the Maraschinos and/or lower/fewer high-order remnants. The sound is a bit fuller and richer. Sœur Marie Keyrouz's angelic vocals on Méditations d'Orient spoke to that. Her lower range showed more chest.

Size relative to the 2/3rd-width Merak monos
Aytaç Doğan's gorgeous qanun on Deva was less Platinum tinted and showed a bit more rose gold. Though the tonal balance in this didn't shift, subjectively it still felt like a lowering of the center of gravity - slight but experiential and calming at that. With inherently toneful speakers like the literally tone-wood soundkaos (musical instrument-grade Alpine spruce) or Sven Boenicke's solid-wood W5, there's a bit more leeway for just how 'turbo-charged' amplifiers can get before they telegraph as too lean and stripped back. Here the juice-bar choice was between a lemon, honey, ginger and raspberry concoction for fruit acids and some heat (Maraschino) and one where the ginger was replaced by banana (Merak). It's a colorful example but might suggest how just one small ingredient can shift the overall flavor balance in small but meaningful ways.


Tally tale. As its designer promised, his petite Maraschino is really about speed, open-sky treble and translucence. It's about a lit-up quick rhythmically tensioned articulate resolved sound very much like the Goldmund/Job 225. Wherein comes the only sour-cherry note. For equal power and sonics that Swiss-made stereo amp ships factory-direct for $1'695 delivered globally. To pay the not insignificant surcharge for the red-faced Americans should mean reasons beyond raw performance. I'm thinking looks, size, true dual mono, patriotism and such. That's no diss on sound. Value is simply less extreme than certain familiar competitors. And familiarity means one can't in good conscience overlook what one knows. On practical matters the lack of a power mains switch will cause potential inconveniences already described. For those sold without concerns over fiscal or power competitiveness, the Maraschino monos from Digital Amplifier Company are an excellent alternative to established class D options. Whilst their switch-mode power supplies are Chinese generics and likely to inject HF noise into your AC line, the signal-path circuitry isn't a big-name OEM supplier's but proprietary, ultra quiet and clearly effective. Desk-top users with inefficient Mark+Daniel type monitors could fall very hard for Maraschino indeed due to ultra-compact size, good power and low-Ω drive. And to wrap up with an entirely unsolicited comment from my interior decorator, "gosh are these cute".

That's where things stood when EnigmAcoustics' Mythology M1 'super monitor' arrived. With an 85dB sensitivity rating, this was exactly the type of load a high-current 250-watt into 4Ω amp should thrive on. Two, with a port tuning of 40Hz, woofer control would be critical. Three, the unique self-biased ambient recovery device aka super tweeter should cotton to Maraschino's reflexes and lit-up treble like moth to flame. It was too good an opportunity to miss particularly since at $14'690/pr with stands, prospective M1 owners might like to learn of a potential amplifier candidate that didn't duplicate the speaker budget. Tommy O'Brien was happy enough to extend this loan to accommodate this final chapter. And he had other exciting news. "First, I can't thank you enough for your beautifully written review. They way you describe the sound is simply amazing. Nobody does it better! Second, we will be lowering our list price. We have been doing everything possible to push vendors and increase build volume to allow a sub-$3'000 point per pair including our new 60V 1kW power supply. We will make the fancy WBT posts an upgrade option and plan a black-top option as well. The default posts will be the still very nice Dayton Gold type. We look forward to your take on synergy with the Mythology M1."