Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Thread Like Summary - Explorer 2 vs...

Is the Explorer 2 still the best option around its price or are there better options for a portable, MQA compatible, Roon tested DAC these days?

I’m not very familiar with this market, so am only aware of the Audioquest Dragonfly Red as being one alternative, although some reviews mention this might sound a bit brighter or more ‘insistent’ with the Explorer 2 being a bit smoother and more refined.

Anything which might be slightly more expensive which would be worth a little extra?

Will be used with Sennheiser HD300 Pro (as the noisy neighbours constant construction work is interfering with my work) and HD650 for pleasure.

I bought Etymotic Research ER4P-T MicroPro In-Ear Monitors years ago (for considerably less than the current £300 I might add).

The cable mine came with is annoyingly microphonic; they may have changed it, but I don't know.

Isolation is really superb and they are truly a reference in-ear monitor.

I find them comfortable, but everyone's ears are different.

Edit: looks like they have a new "reference" ER4SR.

Another thumbs up on the Etymotics from me. I use(d) them on the tube every day and had no breakthrough whatsoever. I found the way to minimise microphony is to use the clip and keep the leads well away from clothes.

I have both Explorers and a Prime and cannot recall seeing any announcement of firmware update for any of them since the render only updates came through for other kit. This was following announcements/observations here but at the time, I did check on Meridian site and specifically ask and nothing came to light. Now, I could have missed an announcement or observation, or Meridian snuck something through without anyone noticing, but I suspect the answer is that the Meridian headphone DACs missed out on render only.

I will try and check for sure later though.

[edit]Latest Prime firmware bin file on firmware download zip is June 2016. Nothing yet spotted for any Explorer on website.

I'll still try a test with both Explorer² and Prime in render only mode

I have to admit the Roxanne's are really amazing earphones (although they're not getting much use at the moment, as they're mainly for when I'm travelling).

On sound muffling, when we moved here, it was still a building site as they hadn't yet built the house opposite (not helped by the fact, when they had built it, the house started sliding down the hill and they had to do three days of pile driving to pin it in place!) and I found the Flare Audio superb at blocking out the noise (and comfortable enough to wear when sleeping). I tried noise cancelling headphones and that didn't work, I tried music but that distracted me from my work, so moved to these. It wasn't a completely ideal, but the silence was golden!

I hope you find a solution that works for you

Apologies I gave my office away to allow wife to WFH so could not find Explorer² but tested on Prime, which, TBH, if render only is on Prime, then it's probably on Explorer² as they are USB wise, very close siblings.

But it's not. As I originally thought, "Renderer Only" only played at 2x, "Decoder + Renderer", and "Decoder Only" played at 4x with MQA blue light.

I would be 99% certain that this would be the case for the Explorer².

hth

The over (actually on)-ear Bose headphones I bought (and returned) dates back sometime around 2012, so may well have been updated since.

Although a while ago, I believe they were the QuietComfort 15. I later went with the QuietComfort 20 for flying, until the battery failed 18 months later. Not being able to face more transatlantic flights without some kind of noise cancellation, I bought the QuietControl 30, which (it turns out) aren't actually all that comfortable for flying... but probably fine in normal use.

I wouldn't count on them to block intermittent noise, though. Passenger announcements, the clatter of plates etc come through pretty clearly (albeit more quietly). That said, with Van Halen playing, you probably wouldn't hear a thing!

B&O noise cancelling headphones have easily accessible replaceable batteries, so there’s no fear of battery failure (I have a spare that I’ve never had to use). Useful, if you’re on a long-haul flight, to carry a spare battery.

Prior to buying my B&O H8’s, I auditioned the Bose (and B&W): to my ears, B&O is considerably superior to Bose (and B&W).

I have the sony noise cancelling headphones. I found the cancellation of background noise on plane flights to be effective. You can toggle on and off with a hard button. I think the sound quality is decent, though obviously there are better ones out there. The bluetooth connection works well and doesn’t seem to be a compromise over a wired connection. My main criticism is that the ear pads are a soft plastic of some sort. Perfectly comfortable, but tend to get a little sweaty. I do sweat easily, so may not be an issue for most folks. I haven’t taken the time to see if nicer replacement ear pads are available yet.

I'd been considering those Sonys for quite a while, so your comments (calibrated to a known good Meridian 500/800 ear!) are very useful.

Thanks very much for the detailed write up, but sorry to hear that they haven't worked out for you.

Cheers

George

These were very interesting in-ear units. M HQ were very interested in them a few years ago (nudge wink).

I had a good listen to the various 1-way, 2-way and 4-way units at the Chiswick Studio headphone jamboree a few years ago. They were really quite excellent.

If I ever start commuting again I will probably get some. The custom in-ear moulding really makes for a very personal product with very high SQ performance.

So, I got the Sony's and tried them a bit yesterday and for a longer work session today.

Hm.

I have three problems.

1. The sound isolation/cancelling is oddly frequency specific. I know the ANC only works for lower frequencies, and this appears to be really excellent. However, I was expecting, based on reviews and measurements for these that the passive mid-high frequency isolation would be considerably better than it is. What actually happens is that (e.g. on a windy day today with the doors open in the porch) the 'phones block the low frequencies with sea/wind, which is like a sort of brown/pink noise (and actually rather nice to work to) but leave prominent/random noise almost untouched (birdsong, speech, random hammering/cutting). This is a) the frequencies I find most irritating anyway and wished to block most, b) they actually stand out MORE due to the other frequencies being blocked so effectively! I tested this by lifting the 'phones off my ears when I heard a pigeon singing away in them, without the 'phones I could barely make out the bird as it was masked by the sea/wind noise. I wasn't expecting this. I can absolutely see why these would be miraculous on a plane/train, but not for what I need them to achieve.

2. Comfort. Seems OK initially, but after an hour or so, I start to get jaw and head ache from the earphones themselves and the headband. Also, mild 'aeroplane effect' with ANC on, which doesn't bother me as much as the headache (I don't get this with extended use of my Sennheiser HD650s).

3. Sound quality. To be honest, it's mediocre. It doesn't hurt my ears or do anything madly offensive, but bass is well over the top and overall it's a bit muddy. I can only think the rave reviews were listening to simple acoustic, or sparse rock, and not complex classical with big dynamic peaks and lots of instruments battling for space.

So, I'm on the verge of sending them back and trying some Shure in-ears. Allegedly, the isolation is more like a pair of foam earplugs, but I was more concerned about the sound quality being almost the opposite of these - a little bass light/bright/mid-centric - possibly over-revealing of mobile sources?

Any thoughts welcome!

I just tried out the Airpod Pro's at home and, while they successfully cut out the stupidly loud baby milk machine noise and me tapping on my desk, sadly I don't think they would do any more than cut the noise level on the noise you are dealing with.

I also tried my Roxanne's with the medium Comply tips (bear in mind, the large tips work more effectively in reducing ambient noise, but become uncomfortable more quickly), which actually let in more noise with the AirPods! I hate to say this, but you may find (as I did) that in such an environment, noise reduction may not work.

It might be worth trying the AirPods on the basis you can return them, or the earplugs I mentioned (they are pretty awesome at cutting noise!).

Something that wouldn't have been obvious (at least to anyone that doesn't own one of these particular milk machines) is that the noisiest bit is actually the irritating ear-splitting beep-beep-beep that it uses to let you know it's finished (I'm so tempted to cut the wires to the buzzer as it does a better job of waking the household than the fire alarms do!).

In the room next door, the Airpod Pro's did effectively cut out the noise. I'm not sure how well they work at cutting out Nespresso noises, but I may give this a go tomorrow and let you know.