Meridian reveals Explorer 2 DAC with MQA support

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The Explorer 2 is the latest pocket USB DAC and headphone amp from Meridian, coming with support for the company's new MQA technology thanks to more powerful digital signal processing.

Following in the footsteps of the original Meridian Explorer, the Explorer 2 has a similarly slim, compact design, and is still handmade in the UK.

Promising to connect to virtually any computer with a USB port, with drivers provided for Linux, Mac and PC, the Explorer 2 upsamples all incoming audio signals to 176.4/192kHz.

The new DAC also supports Meridian's new MQA technology, which aims to package studio quality files in to smaller sizes for downloading and also streaming of high-res content. This is thanks to "a significantly more powerful DSP capability" compared to the original Explorer DAC.

MORE: Meridian Audio MQA paves way for high-res streaming

Meridian's apodising filter (inherited from the Reference 800 Series) is also on board, which claims to deliver a "clearer, more transparent sound."

MORE: Meridian Explorer DAC review

Max Langridge

Max is a staff writer for What Hi-Fi?'s sister site, TechRadar, in Australia. But being the wonderful English guy he is, he helps out with content across a number of Future sites, including What Hi-Fi?. It wouldn't be his first exposure to the world of all things hi-fi and home cinema, as his first role in technology journalism was with What Hi-Fi? in the UK. Clearly he pined to return after making the move to Australia and the team have welcomed him back with arms wide open.