Fosi Audio Merak Wants to be More Than Your CD Player

Fosi Audio’s Merak CD Player is a compact, all-in-one digital transport, DAC, and headphone amplifier which, according to the company, is “designed to bring new life to CD collections.”

While looking like a portable disc player, the Merak, named after Beta Ursae Majoris (a guiding star historically used for navigation, don’t you know), has no onboard battery. However, it does claim to combine modern digital architecture with user-friendly features.

Fosi Audio’s Merak CD Player, says the manufacturer, is designed to serve as a reference point in personal audio, "delivering precise imaging and an immersive listening experience."

To do this, Merak features a high-quality audio architecture built around a CS43131 DAC and TPA6120 amplifier. This hands Merak enough juice to support up to 16-bit/96kHz playback.

Moreover, Fosi claims a signal-to-noise ratio of up to 124dB and a THD+N of 0.0009%. This should deliver clean, detailed sound to your headphones (via a 3.5mm output - 210mW×2), amplifier, and active speakers.

Taking care of business is a “professional-grade CD mechanism and servo system” which is needed to ensure stable, accurate disc reading.

Classical junkies will benefit from the gapless playback, handing them uninterrupted listening - this will also be handy for prog fans and when listening to live recordings, for example.

Meanwhile, a transparent top-loading design showcases album artwork and should also minimise disc wear when compared with slot-loaders.

More Than Spinning

Justifying Merak’s claim to be more than just a CD player, its optical output with a low-jitter clock allows it to operate as a dedicated digital transport when paired with an external DAC. Moreover, this is output at 16bit/44.1kHz directly without internal DAC processing.

Additionally, it offers USB playback and one-touch CD ripping enabling you to archive your music library in lossless 16-bit/44.1kHz WAV format.

Further features include electronic anti-shock protection, an OLED display for clear playback information, multiple playback modes (Repeat, Shuffle, and more), and support for USB drives up to 128GB.

The Fosi Audio Merak CD Player is available now priced at US$139.99 | CA$199.99 | €149.99 | £125.99 | AU$199.99.

For more information visit Fosi Audio