August 2024

World Premiere Review!
Merrill Audio Element 110 Monoblock Power Amplifier Review
A significant accomplishment!
Review By Tom Lyle

   I would understand if some readers of Enjoy the Music.com assumed that I was in cahoots with the high-end audio company Merrill Audio. This is my fifth review of a Merrill Audio component. Within the April 2015 issue I reviewed Merrill Audio's Thor monoblock power amplifiers and, also that year, Merrill's Taranis power amps. In 2017, I reviewed Merrill's outstanding Christine Reference preamplifier. Then, in 2018, I reviewed their mighty 118 monoblock power amplifiers.

I have reviewed many of Merrill Audio's products because their headquarters are about twenty miles from my home. The owner of Merrill Audio, Merrill Wettasinghe, has hand-delivered each review component I've reviewed. While he is here, and because Mr. Wettasinghe and I are both audiophiles and music lovers, we often listen to some music after setting up the equipment. Afterward, we frequently get something to eat at a local eatery.

Does our professional friendship influence my reviews of Merrill Audio's high-end audio equipment? Perhaps unintentionally. However, those familiar with my reviewing style know that regardless of who designs and manufactures the components and speakers I review, for the last 35 years, I've approached my reviews with the same objectivity irrespective of who owns the company. This ensures that you, the reader, can trust the information and opinions I provide and should have confidence in my trustworthiness regarding all the equipment I review.

Developed
Merrill Audio's Element 110 manual proudly states that these monoblocks were designed and developed under Merrill's "Project Oganesson" and highlights their sonic abilities and the methods used to achieve them. Merrill claims that these methods led to traits such as allowing one to "emotionally connect" to the music, their "ultra-low noise," excellent resolution, "extra speed, and the extra body that makes it possible for one to distinguish even the most minute differentiations in the musical presentation."  These are traits that I wish all audio products possessed, and it was clear that during the audition period, I would discover whether or not these claims were valid or simply advertising hyperbole.

Exterior
My job as an objective reviewer was more difficult because of how good the exterior of the Merrill Audio Element 110 looked. This was especially true of the amps' brightly colored front panel 7" Capacitive Touch Screen Display (CTSD). To mute or unmute the Element 110, one must lightly touch the upper right or left of this full-color CTSD display. There were other functions and measurements on the screen, too, such as temperature and a power meter, but I never needed them. This hardly mattered because the display looked so impressive that I couldn't imagine doing it without it.

Version
When speaking with Merrill about these monoblocks, I learned that Element 110 is a scaled-down version of the $24,000 Merrill Element 116 monoblocks, using lower-priced components, heatsinks, and other constituents. The 110's power is also rated lower. However, Merrill said these monoblocks have the same transient response as Element 116. Thus, it will sound similar to Element 116 regarding the speaker load. He added that one could discern the difference between it and its more powerful brethren only when reaching a sustained, loud volume level.

The Element 110 is rated at 150 Watts in 8 Ohms, and its power doubles when into a 4 Ohm load. Compared to other similarly powered amplifiers, Merrill claims that the Element 110 will surpass them in handling one's speaker load.

Merrill insists this amp has excellent timing, mainly due to what he calls the "fabulous" new GaN transistor. The GaN driver circuits can provide "extraordinary detail with a balanced, smooth musical output." He said the details are faithfully reproduced because he uses no feedback, because in Merrill's opinion, "Feedback kills the details." This is a feature in all of the Merrill Element monoblocks.

Class
Within the Merrill Audio Element 110 manual, Merrill uses a good deal of space describing the time it took to develop a Class D amplifier with none of the downsides and only the positive aspects this type of circuit is capable of. It's no secret that the Class D circuit used in power amplifiers was introduced to the audiophile market too soon. This was about 25 years ago. Early versions of these amplifiers impressed me with their compactness and cool running efficiency. The only thing lacking was decent sound quality. But that was a long time ago. Thankfully, these days, Class D amps marketed to audiophiles have little in common with those amplifiers in their design and especially their sound quality.

Still, those who are familiar with my review style know that I wouldn't care if a component was built using parts of a ballpoint pen and held together with duct tape – that I would still give it a positive review if the component's sound quality were better than similarly priced models, it mated well with the components in my review system and had a decent warranty.

System
The system in which I reviewed the Merrill Element 110 monoblocks was located in an acoustically treated, dedicated listening room. This medium-sized room has two separate power lines directly connected to the circuit board in the basement. I used battery power supplies for the front-end components, including the linestage, phono preamp, and digital converter. Much of the other gear was connected to a Change Lightspeed ISO 9300 power conditioner or an AC regenerator with an internal amplifier that takes the wall's AC and converts it to DC, then back to a perfect AC 110-Volt sinewave. The Merrill Audio Element 110 monoblocks were connected directly to the AC wall outlet.

The analog front end included a Basis Audio Model V turntable with a Tri-Planar 6 tonearm. A Top Wing Suzaku – Red Sparrow MC phono cartridge was mounted on the tonearm. During the review, this phono cartridge was being re-tipped. During its relatively short absence, I used a Lyra Kleos phono cartridge, but thankfully, the Top Wing phono cartridge returned before the end of the review period.

The turntable's power cable running from its AC synchronous motor was connected to a separate but smaller AC regenerator, which functioned as its power supply and speed controller. The Tri-Planar 6 tonearm's integral interconnect led to the inputs of a Pass Laboratories two-chassis XP-27 phono stage, and the phono stage's interconnects fed either a tube-based Nagra Classic Preamp or a Pass Labs two-chassis XP-22 linestage.

The digital front end consisted of a computer-based music server, with Foobar 2000 and J.River Media software used to play FLAC files loaded on hard-wired hard drives connected to the computer. Using Wireworld's Platinum Starlight 7 USB cable, the computer's USB port was connected to the EMM (Meitner) DA2 or Simaudio's Moon 681 digital converters. The computer was also loaded with Tidal and Qobuz streaming services.

Power
When I was offered this power amplifier for review, at 150 Watts each, I assumed that these monoblock's power rating was too low to drive my reference Sound Lab Majestic 545 electrostatic speakers. These speakers' impedance drops quite low when playing at what I consider a "normal" volume. So, I've always insisted that I need a solid-state amplifier with at least 200 Wpc to drive them to "realistic" levels. I assumed that an amplifier such as the Element 110, even though its power doubles as the impedance of one's speaker is halved, with "only" 150 Wpc in 8 Ohms, was insufficient.

Yes, sometimes, it is nice to be proven wrong. The Merrill Element 110 allowed me to review these monoblocks with my reference speakers, and if I turned my preamplifier's volume too high, I would have risked damaging my speakers, my ears, or both. Throughout the review, the Element 110 monoblocks never clipped or made any other sounds but music. The fact that Merrill Audio's Element 110 monoblocks easily drove these Sound Lab electrostatic speakers is very impresive!

Played
One of the first LPs I played through Merrill Audio's Element 110 monoblocks after they were broken in was Peter Gabriel's double album Live In Athens 1987. This album, which is also quite popular on DVD (of which I've only seen clips), sounded incredible through these monoblocks. I enjoyed the album from beginning to end, as it acted as an excellent review tool, and to my ears, the music on this album is top-notch, as Gabriel and his band are in top form. It is also an outstanding live recording. The vinyl was cut at half-speed, which may or may not have been responsible for sounding so good through the Element 110s.

Throughout Peter Gabriel's solo career, he has depended on Tony Levin's electric bass and Chapman stick playing. The bass frequencies coming through my speakers were deep and powerful. Making this bass sound more realistic was that I could hear the initial pluck of the strings – and thus the technical prowess of Tony Levin's masterful bass playing.

I could easily fill this review with audiophile clichés, praising the Element 110's transient response, its solid imaging, vast soundstage, and its other positive traits. Listening to the Peter Gabriel album was often thrilling, but the best attribute of the 110s was that I kept being drawn into the lifelike sounding music filling the front half of my listening room. I can think of no greater praise when evaluating the sound quality of an audio component. The energy of this live performance surrounded me as if I were hearing the master "tape" of this album. As I mentioned, I listened to the double album from beginning to end, primarily due to the Element 110s sonic magnetism.

Whether it was due to this pressing's half-speed mastering or not, the vinyl's surface noise was nonexistent, so this allowed me to enjoy the pitch-black background of the Element 110s. As with almost all recorded rock music, plenty of compression was added during this album's mixdown. However, there was still a great deal of micro- and macrodynamic presence from this recording, which was highly noticeable.

The LP's quiet surfaces allowed me to discern the pitch-black background of these monoblocks, which in turn allowed me to hear the low-level detail present in this fabulous recording, such as the sound of the hand-held percussion that was often present in the rearmost area of the soundstage, emanating from behind the front wall of my listening room. This low-level detail, plus the fact that the recording engineers purposely added a stereo track of crowd sound and the outdoor venue's ambiance, certainly added to the highly realistic sound that I was hearing.

As much as I appreciated the sound quality of the vinyl, this low-level detail was even more present when I played the high-resolution version of this album through Qobuz, which makes sense. Thanks to the Merrill Audio Element 110 monoblocks, I enjoyed this album as much as ever. To have a two-channel system envelop me with music was a testament to the extraordinary soundstage that the 110s maintained throughout the entire four sides of the vinyl and even the digital version of this album. I was skeptical; I am more of a fan of Peter Gabriel's earlier solo works, but I would still highly recommend this live album to all fans of Peter Gabriel's long career.

Later in the review, I listened to some jazz, the Jackie McLean album New Soil. This one was his first album as a leader on a Blue Note session, recorded in 1959 when Mr. McLean was still playing primarily in his hard bop style of modern jazz. On this album, he successfully introduces his audience to his new style, breaking free of the "confines" of bop. Joining him on this session is one of my favorite trumpeters on Blue Note, Donald Byrd. Also in this session was Walter Davis, Jr. on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Pete LaRoca on drums.

Even though the DSD version I played was an early Blue Note stereo version, of course, recorded by Rudy Van Gelder in his Englewood, NJ studio, other than equipment upgrades, his mixing style didn't seem to change much throughout his studio's lifetime, which included panning instruments hard to the left or right speakers. Since I've been listening to these recordings all my adult life, almost all these Blue Note recordings sound as "real" as a real space gets.

I loved how the Merrill Element 110 monoblocks delivered such an exact-sounding musical signal to my reference speakers, letting me bask in the distinctive sound of Jackie McLean's horn. The slight amount of reverb added to his sax, Pete LaRaca's drum kit, and all the other instruments on this recording sounded very appropriate and added to my enjoyment of this album.

Throughout the playing of this classic jazz album, I never felt as if I wasn't hearing precisely what was on this record, which isn't something that can be assumed when using an amplifier that isn't as well designed as the Merrill Element 110s. There were so few errors of either commission or omission that it often left me little to write about in my listening notes other than what I thought about the music I was listening to.

I'm not always in agreement with jazz critic Stanley Crouch, but in his review of this album he said, "McLean had an unapologetic New York sound that embodied the hard sorrow of urban life, but answered it with the triumphal dance of swing." How one can translate that description into what one hears at a McLean session might be an enigma to most, but Jackie McLean fans can easily recognize it. I'm a fan, and even with the reverb added to his alto sax on this recording, the Jackie McLean "sound" came through without a hint of difficulty.

Even though it was quite a few years ago, I distinctly remember the time I spent enjoying music when auditioning for the award-winning Merrill Audio's top-of-the-line 118 monoblock power amplifiers (and rereading the review certainly helped). Even though the 110 monoblocks didn't scale the same sonic heights as the 118s, the Element 110 monoblocks have many characteristics that impressed me immensely during the entire review period.

Time and again, one of the characteristics that I liked most about Merrill's flagship monoblocks was their sonic honesty; what came forth from my speakers was dependent more on the sound quality of the recording than on the traits of these amps. The 110s might not have had this quality as much as the Merrill Element 118 monoblocks. Still, in a way, it made me respect what I was hearing coming from Element 110 even more – that I could compare these monoblocks to Element 118, even if just a bit – is a significant accomplishment.

Members
The Merrill Audio Element 110 monoblocks are not members of the "easily affordable" high-end audio equipment club. For many audiophiles, their $12,500-a-pair price tag might be unattainable. For others, they are very reasonably priced. For the former, they should be on their wish list, and for the latter, they should be seriously considered if shopping for a pair of monoblocks anywhere near their price.

Specifications
Type: Solid-state monoblock amplifier
Frequency Response: 20Hz to 30kHz (+/-0.1dB)
Output Power: 150 Watts @ 8 Ohm (300W @ 4 Ohm, 600W @ 2 Ohm)
Input: One balanced XLR input per channel
Output: One pair of loudspeaker outputs using WBT-0710 CuMc Platinum Plated Pure copper posts that accept spades, wires, and banana plugs.
Control Connectors: 20A IEC C19 AC inlet, Furutech Rhodium Plated AC inlet
Signal-to-Noise Ratio: > 100dB
Input Impedance: 100kOhm balanced
Voltage Gain: 23dB
Dimensions: 13.7" x 8.7" x 20.4" (WxHxD without outriggers)
Weight: 45 lbs.
Price: $12,500 

Company Information
Merrill Audio Advanced Technology Labs, LLC
80 Morristown Road
Unit 3B #275
Bernardsville, NJ 07924

Voice: (415) 562-4434
E-mail: sales-123@merrillaudio.net  
Website: MerrillAudio.net