Meridian Director Digital to Analog Converter (DAC)

Director, also known as Direct DAC, is a simple way to enjoy Meridian and make all your digital music sound its best. Director is a high-quality DAC (Digital to Analogue Converter) designed to deliver superior audio quality from any digital source.

Upgrade Music Throughout Your Home

Built in Britain to the same standards as any Meridian product, Director breathes new life into digital sources when listened to on analogue hi-fi systems.

Director forms the ideal add-on for network players and music servers with digital outputs, bringing Meridian performance and ultimate sound quality to an entirely new class of audio products and systems. These sound enhancing technologies are derived from the award-winning line of Reference 800 Series components, and significantly out-perform the DACs found in computers and most network players.

Design

Featuring an all-metal elliptical case, Director echoes design elements immediately identifying it as a Meridian product. Each side has molded end caps that provide connections as well as source choice and resolution.

Director is designed to connect to any analogue hi-fi or audio system with its own volume control, and is particularly appropriate for installation environments. It is bit-precise for the ultimate in sound quality and delivers the lowest possible distortion and modulation noise, with predictable quality. Director is handmade in the UK with the same precision and craftsmanship as every Meridian product.

Technology

Director (also known as Direct DAC) supports sample rates up to 24-bit, 192kHz and incorporates Meridian Resolution Enhancement technologies, including Meridian Upsampling and the Apodising filter, improving audio quality. The proprietary Apodising filter results in a purer sound, and can also clean up some recording faults, particularly in earlier digital recordings. Standard sample rate signals (16–24 bit, 44.1/48kHz) are automatically upsampled to 24- bit 88.2/96kHz. Separate precision reference oscillators are included for sample rates based on 44.1 kHz and on 48 kHz, minimising jitter. The DAC itself offers extremely low modulation noise and distortion, and incorporates the highest quality components throughout, including audiophile grade capacitors, resistors and gold-plated phono sockets. Some features of the design are based directly on circuitry and components used in Meridian’s Reference 800 Series. 

As with all Meridian products, our goal in developing the Director is to help you enjoy the music you love with the very highest quality playback, without compromise, using innovative engineering and technology.

Meridian Apodising Filter

Filters are critical in digital audio. Commonly they introduce distortion and harshness because of "pre-ringing". Early digital recordings suffer from harshness too, due to primitive filters. After painstaking research, Meridian developed a special filter that avoids pre-ringing, so it can be steeper, cleaning up the effects of early filters. The result: a better, cleaner sound from recordings old and new.

Provides plug-and-play operation with Macintosh computers; a driver is required for Windows (XP or later): this is the same driver used for the Explorer DAC. In USB mode, Director uses asynchronous transfer for the best sound quality.