For the edition 6/20 of Tape Op magazine, Tom Fine wrote a great review about our Mastering D/A Converter SPL Mercury. You can find the complete review online and in the magazine, here we provide you with a short summary:
In practice:
“The front-panel source switching worked great – no hiccups or noise bursts when switching from a 192 kHz/24 bit playback via USB to a CD playback through optical or S/PDIF input. The pushbutton switches performed and felt like they are built to last and belong in a top-notch equipment rack.”
Technology:
“Basically, they’ve developed an op-amp that runs on +/-60 VDC, as opposed to the more typical +/-15 V or 18 V. This gives you a voltage swing of 120 V as opposed to 30 V or 36 V, which equates to greater dynamic range and headroom. In mastering-grade digital equipment, this matters.”
“Another unique feature of this DAC is in-house designed low-pass filtering post-conversion, in the analog domain.”
“Suffice to say, dynamic range, noise floor, and distortion measurements are very impressive.”
Conclusion:
“The Mercury Mastering DAC is designed to fit into SPL’s series of mastering studio gear built around their 120 V op-amps, and is thus aimed at the upscale mastering facility. Its design sets it up for transparent, undistorted sound with the ability to drive whatever monitoring system is present. This proved to be the case in my studio. From the get-go, it sounded like a top-drawer DAC, which to me means it basically had no signature sound – it just converted the digital signal and buffered it for playback through the power amp.”
