⌈ DANIEL HERTZ is a company created by MARK LEVINSON in 2007. In 2009 it introduced large, expensive monaural amplifiers and high efficiency speakers. Company’s headquarters are located in Switzerland, but one finds a branch also in Venice, where the production of the amplifiers and speakers takes place. We are testing a system comprised of MARIA 800 integrated amplifier and bi-amplified CHIARA loudspeakers. ⌋

THE DANIEL HERTZ COMPANY was founded and is run by Mark Levinson. He is one of the most famous names in the audio world - a man who in his lifetime has founded and run such brands as Mark Levinson Audio Systems, Cello, Red Rose Music and - the one we are talking about this time - Daniel Hertz.

As we mentioned in our test of the Maria 350 amplifier, this is a company that offers audio products for the premium consumer market - amplifiers and speakers - bearing a “significant” name. With it, Levinson thus pays tribute to his parents - his father (Daniel) and mother, whose maiden name was Hertz. The subtext was a reference to his relative Heinrich Hertz, who in 1887 was the first to demonstrate an electromagnetic wave, thus initiating audio measurements, as well as a reference to the crucial importance of science and engineering to the company.

In the company's current lineup, the speakers are priced as befits a high-end product, while the amplifiers seem inexpensive in comparison. As I've written before, a little over 13,000 EUR for a unit designed to work with speakers ranging from 13,200 EUR for the “budget” Amber Midnight, to more than 33,000 EUR for the Maria 800 designed to work in bi-amping setting, and M1 speakers for 223,000 EUR, seems quite inexpensive. Therefore, as it seems, it is the amplifier that is now at the center of Levinson's vision. According to Mark, “Maria is the best amplifier he can produce, regardless of cost.” And its relatively low price “is due to the cost-effectiveness of the new DH technology.”

▌ Setup

IT'S SAID THAT TAKING THE FIRST STEP is the hardest, right? I can confirm this “golden thought”, based on the work I had to do to prepare a test of the Daniel Hertz Maria 350 integrated amplifier; more → HERE. It's mainly about understanding the principle of operation of this company's most important technology, as well as arranging its assumptions in my head. And that's because both are quite different from how the audiophile game is usually played.

C WAVE • The thing is, that the signal in the amplifiers named Maria is modified in a DSP chip with an algorithm that the company calls C Wave. It's supposed to “condition” the digital signal in such a way that it's not only sonically better, but also - citing the manufacturer - “less harmful to the user.” It is supposed to fill in the spaces between samples of a discontinuous digital PCM audio wave, so that “the brain feels a continuous wave,” which is supposed to eliminate “digital” artifacts.

As Mark explains it:

It can be observed by playing a digitally generated test tone, say 500 Hz, through a DAC and observing the waveform. Without C Wave, you will see sample/space/sample/space. With C Wave, you'll see the 'blades of grass' throughout the waveform, including the spaces between waveforms.” This is what allows the brain to react as if it were a continuous waveform, such as a pure analog.

Most of us know that pure analog audio and digital audio are quite different, but the industry has not been able to measure why this is so. DH seems to have found a way to test the “presence” of PCM processing and, it claims, this is “the only new audio test in many decades.” The test, performed using health diagnostic equipment, detects a stress response in human physiology that is present in every test subject. The validity of the DH tests was confirmed by the former head of Sony's DSD division, based on a highly controlled blind test.

In the aforementioned test, Mark Levinson said:

What is our C WAVE solution? It involves PCM digital audio. Since virtually all of today's sound world is digital, there is an opportunity to improve sound - music, soundtrack, cell phone sound, Internet services, amplifier sound, musical instrument sound, live performance sound and so on. While the only device that supports C Wave is currently the DH Maria amplifier, the technology can be implemented, in the form of the Daniel Hertz Mighty DSP chip, into any product.

⸜ A few simple words: Mark Levinson from: WOJCIECH PACUŁA, Daniel Hertz Maria 350. Test, „High Fidelity” № 242, 1 June 2024, → HIGHFIDELITY.pl, accessed: 14.10.2024.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office approved the patent for C Wave based on objective measurements, he adds. But the reason for C Wave's approval, according to him, is simple - “the algorithm helps people get more pleasure from listening to music.” He continues, “C Wave brings out the emotion and sound of pure analog audio from all digital PCM formats to enable people to get more pleasure and benefit from listening to music.” As he adds, this confirms something Dick Burwen taught him: “audio is 50% science and 50% ear.”

Dick, one of the four founders of semiconductor company Analog Devices, who was the designer of the original LNP-2 preamplifier circuit and later the Cello Audio Palette block diagram, also became the inspiration for C Wave. Mark says Dick, now 96 years old, “is the man who inspired the creation of the C Wave algorithm” and has been his mentor since he was a 26-year-old jazz musician who “could barely replace a battery.”

SETUP • So much for the C Wave in a nutshell. The other main differentiator of Levinson's products is its emphasis on offering systems rather than individual components such as amplifiers and speakers. These can be purchased separately, but are nevertheless designed to work together to get the full benefits of the Maria amplifier. In this test, we will look at a set consisting of the Maria 800 all-in-one amplifier and Chiara bookshelf speakers. Mark prefers the term “all-in-one” because the Maria is not a typical integrated amplifier for him. The Mighty Cat chip replaces the DAC, preamplifier, power amplifier and interconnect cables in a single chassis.

This amplifier is technologically “almost” the same as Maria 350, but instead of two channels, it offers four with active crossovers, time alignment and C Wave enabled. The reason for this is that in order to achieve top-notch sound, it is better - according to Levinson - to eliminate passive crossovers and use one amplifier (per channel) to drive the tweeter and another to drive the woofer. Chiara features no passive crossovers. The amplifier channels are connected directly to the speaker drivers. The set also includes speaker cables and stands for the speakers.

The individual components of the tested system are priced as follows: Chiara speakers - 23,000 Euros, the Maria 800 amplifier - 33,000 Euros, the stands - 3,000 Euros. Thus, for the whole set one pays 59,000 Euro plus VAT.

▌ Maria 800

MARIA 800 IS THE EXPANDED VERSION of the Maria 350 model - both look identical from the front, and are exactly the same size. However, the difference in their price is significant with the tested model costing more than two and a half times more. It comes from the fact that this is a four-channel amplifier with software, handmade for a customer. The Maria 800 features two digital inputs - USB and coax, as well as three analog RCA inputs with 1 MHz impedance; the signal after the latter is converted to digital. A spare, unused input is available for future input options. WiFi/Bluetooth can be added with external third-party receivers.

The Maria 800 is thus an integrated amplifier equipped with a digital-to-analog converter. Mark Levinson encourages the use of the USB input in particular. The unit is based on complete class D power amplifier modules from Hypex, which has developed modules called NCore. This technology is supposed to offer high stability, but also high load independence - and this is the Achilles' heel of amplifiers of this type.

Their manufacturer writes:

NCORE® is the first Class-D amplifier not just to nudge the best linear amplifiers, but to surpass them in every aspect relevant to sound quality. If you want the ultimate in clarity, resolution and musicality, size no longer matters. The efficiency of NCORE® is inversely proportional to its compactness.

⸜ Hypex NCore Technology, →, accessed: 14.10.2024.

For his amplifier, Mark selected the NC502NP with a rated power output of 320 watts into 8 ohms, a maximum output of more than 400 watts into 8 ohms, 700 watts into 4 ohms, a flat frequency response down to 8 Hz and total harmonic distortion typically in the .0002% range - barely measurable with the most sophisticated test equipment.

PROCESSOR • At the heart of this device is a DSP chip with the brand name Daniel Hertz Mighty Cat. It's a programmable chip, with a software package that includes C Wave technology.

The algorithm was based on experience with Avatar, a health diagnostic software that made predictive measurements based on electroacupuncture voltage measurements. The company found that Avatar was able to accurately and consistently detect the presence of signal-to-PCM conversion in a given recording 100% of the time. The same program also confirmed that with C Wave, the negative effects of PCM were eliminated.

C Wave works a bit like a processor delaying a selected part of the signal by specific time intervals. The brain, however, is supposed to interpret these delays positively, as if, as Mark told me, it were “listening to a tape recorder.” The “White Paper” describing this development reads:

Although many music lovers know that there is a big difference between pure analog audio and digital PCM audio, no one has until now been able to measure why this is the case, despite all the advanced audio measurement equipment available.

DH C Wave's patent shows why. This is not an audio problem. It's about the difference between the way the human brain responds to the continuous waveform of pure analog and the discontinuous waveform of digital PCM audio. C Wave fills these spaces with a patented algorithm based on finely tuned delay using the original musical information that enables the brain to respond as if it were a continuous waveform.

This means that the problem of digital PCM audio can be consistently and reproducibly measured by health tests, i.e. it is a physiological issue.

This is a digital circuit, so ideally, we send a digital signal to the amplifier. The best input for this is the USB input, but we can also use the RCA digital input, for example, sending a signal from a CD transport.

If necessary, an analog signal can also be supplied to the amplifier - there are three pairs of RCA inputs on the rear panel. It is accompanied by input circuitry previously developed for preamplifiers from this company, and features very high input impedance, at 1 MΩ. The circuit uses JRC4580 operational amplifiers. The analog signal is, of course, converted to digital, in a Cirrus Logic CS5381 A/D converter.

The Maria 800 is not only an amplifier that works with speakers, but also a full-fledged headphone amplifier. The head of the company emphasized this in a conversation with me, pointing out that in both cases the digital signal is processed in a Mighty Cat chip. The headphone amplifier output shows, again, JRC4580 chips. The 6.3mm headphone jack is hidden under a screw-on “cap” that looks similar to the power switch.

CHASSIS • Like the Maria 350, the Maria 800 has a chassis that is unusual for this type of equipment. The consensus in the audio industry is that amplifiers operating in Class D need to be heavily shielded because they generate a lot of noise. The same is true of digital circuits.

Levinson did the opposite, with which it referred to the solutions of the British company → DNM DESIGN and the German ASR. Indeed, the Maria 800 amplifier has an acrylic enclosure. These are black plates, covering all the walls of the device. The idea of minimizing metal can also be seen in the very good-looking speaker terminals, set on Teflon plates rather than directly on the rear panel. The terminals can be tightened with a special wrench, plugged into the rear panel. Note - these sockets do not accept banana plugs!

Mark in response to my question answers:

The terminals are optimized for bare copper cable to eliminate eight solder joints and eight pieces of metal - and that’s only for a stereo connection - but thus do not accept banana plugs in the conventional way. The bananas can be inserted vertically and tightened if the user so desires.

Mark says banana connectors can be a source of high distortion audible due to current flow limitations resulting from the way they are made.

To add, the analog signal between the DSP board and the amplifier is carried by two interconnects from Italian company C.T.E. Cablaggi of Padua, and the chip in which C Wave is stored is D2Audio D2-74083-LR. The circuit board was designed by Dr. Skip Taylor of Elegant Audio Solutions, an American company based in Austin, Texas. Skip is a semiconductor designer who designed the Mighty Cat in collaboration with Intersil, is a consultant in semiconductor design, and also works for audio companies.

Maria does not offer a remote control. Mark says this is because the volume control in Maria is supposed to be, as we read, extremely “transparent,” and he doesn't want to compromise. And that's because any remote control seems to degrade sound quality. Mark points out, however, that almost every source today - Macs, Windows, streamers, with the exception of LPs - has a built-in remote volume control.

We won't read the volume level either, because the knob is not scaled - it's an encoder - and there's no corresponding display either. We'd better forget about the type of digital signal on the input and the sampling frequency, too, because we won't find them.

▌ Chiara

CHIARA ARE TWO-WAY STAND-MOUNT SPEAKERS with a vented (bass-reflex) cabinets. The outlet is slotted and located on the rear panel, near the top edge of the cabinet. Their cabinets are made unusually, of plexiglas called Waveglas. It is, as we read, Perspex, or “European art-grade Plexiglas with 2.5 times the density of wood.” The cabinets are handmade in Italy.

As manufacturer explains:

Visually, the Chiara loudspeakers look very different than they sound. But looks are essential to sound quality, which allows Chiara to redefine what is possible in music reproduction. Chiara's completely new concept, design, technology and engineering break with industry assumptions that include what a speaker should look like.

The cabinet looks great and has been made with the highest precision. The drivers use separate modules. On top of the large one with the low-midrange woofer, a smaller one with only the tweeter ribbon is placed. This looks unusual, bringing to mind, for example, → QUALIA speakers ˻PL˺. And the idea is to make the treble propagation independent of the wide baffle of the larger driver.

Both drivers come from Aurum Cantus, which is a Chinese specialized manufacturer descended from Jinlang Audio. The hand-built tweeter is an Aero Striction model with an aluminum corrugated diaphragm. We are familiar with them from Aurum Cantus speakers, they resemble the AST2560 model. Also hand-built are 200 mm woofers, having a resonance frequency of 27 Hz.

They too are manufactured by the same company. They have an aluminum basket and Kevlar fiber composite membrane, not interlaced. The driver terminals are the same as in the speakers, which is very good - they combine Teflon and copper. The speakers do not feature a crossover, as this role is performed by an electronic circuit in the amplifier.

The stands are made of the same material as the speaker cabinets, only that they are transparent. They are formed by three massive elements: a very thick, large lower platform, a smaller but also thick upper platform and a massive “beam” connecting them. They have a lot of mass and are really stable. The bevelled edges make them visually light at the same time. And I guess that's what this design was all about - the stands form a big “C”, they are transparent, and on top of them one puts the black dominant speakers that seem to levitate in the air. The speakers are screwed to the stands, which improves the rigidity of the whole structure.

▌ SOUND

HOW WE LISTENED • Daniel Hertz Maria 800 integrated amplifier was tested as a set together with the company's Chiara speakers. The latter stood on the company's stands. These are really high, as my ears were just below the axis of the bass-midrange driver; the ribbon tweeter were much higher. The tweeter's base is 119 cm from the floor. In my case it was a bit too high, so I had to sit higher. But it could also be that these are speakers conceived for larger rooms, where the listener sits further away from them.

The speakers stood in place of the Harbeths, facing my head, at a distance of 235 cm from me and 230 cm from each other. Their distance from the wall behind them, counting from the center of the rear wall, was 90 cm. I determined the distance between the speakers and their leveling with a Bosch PLR 50 C meter.

You can find out more on speaker positioning in the article Micro-tuning. That is, we set up speakers, HIGH FIDELITY № 177, January 1, 2019, → HERE. More about the acoustics of the HF listening room in the article High Fidelity listening room in the eyes of Mariusz Zielmachowicz, HIGH FIDELITY № 189, January 1, 2020, → HERE.

I performed the main listening with a Lumin T3 file player working as a file transport. And that's because after the analog input section the signal is converted to digital anyway. For part of the listening I also used the Leedh volume control on the Lumin. The amplifier was powered by the Harmonix X-DC350M2R Improved-Version cable, and the Chiara speakers were connected via the company's Daniel Hertz cable, which is a part of the set.

» RECORDINGS USED FOR THE TEST ⸜ a selection

⸜ PHILP GLASS, Truman sleeps (for guitar ensemble), arr. SAM DESMET, Sam Desmet/Tidal, SP, FLAC 16/44,1 (2024).
⸜ FLO, Bending My Rules, Universal Music Operations Limited/Tidal, SP, FLAC 24/48 (2024).
⸜ KITSCHKRIEG, Slow Down (feat. Future), SoulForce Records/Tidal, SP, FLAC 24/44,1 (2024).
⸜ LAURA MARING, Patterns, Chrysalis Records | Partisan Records/Tidal, SP, FLAC 24/44,1 (2024).
⸜ KATIA & MARIELLE LABEQUE/BRYCE DESSNER, Sonic Wires, Deutsche Grammophon/Tidal, FLAC 16/44,1 (2024).
⸜ CHET BAKER, Chet Baker Sings: It Could Happen To You, Riverside/Craft Recordings/Tidal, FLAC 24/192 (1955/2021).
⸜ FRANK SINATRA, L.A. Is My Lady, Qwest, Warner Bros/Tidal, FLAC 16/44,1, (1984/?).
⸜ WES MONTGOMERY, The Complete Full House Recordings, Riverside/Craft Recordings/Tidal, FLAC 24/192 (1962/2023).
⸜ MACHIAVISHNU ORCHESTRA, Birds of Fire, Columbia Records/Sony Music Entertainment/Tidal, FLAC 16/44,1, (1973/?).

» Playlist with track used for the test is available @ TIDAL → HERE

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So HERE IS HOW IT IS: The CHIARA + MARIA 800 SYSTEM is very expensive. Nearly sixty thousand euros for a small integrated amplifier and stand-mount speakers, and these are products of relatively simple design, is a lot, maybe even way too much. But only if we think in terms of “hi-fi”. That is, if we imagine in their place gutsy, large split amplifiers, floor-standing speakers of a reputable brand and high-end cabling. And, to reiterate, we will be right.

However, I propose a thought experiment of forgetting that there are classics in an audiophile's daily life and that they are the pivot of the industry. Let's just listen to the music. And then the minimalism of the system, its unconventional appearance and, above all, the sound it offers, may seem worth any money. And I haven't even mentioned the potential healing effect of the C Wave algorithms yet, because I don't have enough knowledge about it, nor do I have any way to test its effect on me. I am “only” talking about music here and now.

And it has qualities with the tested system that probably most of us are looking for and only few find. And if we do, we fine-tune small systems based on SET tube amplifiers and small speakers, with a turntable as the source, accepting all the limitations of such a configuration. With the tested system we get something similar, but without most of these limitations. And certainly without a limit when it comes to the pleasure of listening to music.

Because the sound we get will be soft on the one hand, and internally orderly on the other. It will also have something like a “liquid core” that ties everything together. Yes, this is probably the thing that caught my ear right away, whether with SAM DESMET’S guitars or with R&B music performed by FLO. In the first case, the classical guitar recorded in several layers had an excellent, high volume, but also all these layers were in a sense a whole, a continuum.

Likewise with the three vocals from Bending My Rules, a single from Flo's new album, a band consisting of Jorja Douglas, Stella Quaresma, and Renée Downer. And the guitars and vocals were presented with incredible feeling, but also with “presence,” that is, mass. This is extremely spacious playing, so it may seem that the sounds lack something like “ground.” But only until the low bass enters, as in the single Slow Down (feat. Future) by KITSCHKRIEG, a German production band from Berlin. It was superbly saturated, even saturated playing with spot-on bass.

As you can see, the system is agnostic when it comes to music. But it's also the case that I've spent the most time with music that flows lazily, unhurriedly. Like Patterns by LAURA MARLING. Born in 1990, yet with a voice that belongs to the Joni Mitchell cosmos, this British neofolk musician, twice Grammy-nominated performer, sounded remarkably tasteful.

The system appears to be not very selective, but this impression is misleading. The singing of the birds, the playing with phase, the dubbing of vocals, it was all clear from the first moment. But I didn't perceive it as “audiophile flavor,” if you know what I mean. It was not something “above” the music, but “in” it, it was a development of some thought. That's why the vocals, often drawn out, let it be CHET BAKER from the album Chet Baker Sings, that is, from the early period of his career, or FRANK SINATRA from the album L.A. Is My Lady, that is, an album recorded at a mature age, in both cases were shown in an almost holographic way, but also in a homogeneous “musical environment”.

They both recorded their albums in the same room with the musicians, Baker because in the 1950s it was impossible to record otherwise, and Sinatra because otherwise he himself never wanted to record, even when it was already possible. And this connectivity, a kind of “agreement”, consistency between all elements of the recordings can be heard. Likewise, by the way, on WES MONTGOMERY's The Complete Full House Recordings, recorded live at Tsubo in 1962.

It was ‘firm’, dense playing that almost begged you to turn up the volume knob. But not because it was warm, dull or rounded. On the contrary, it was because it was open, dynamic and multi-layered. There's a lot going on in this sound, and that's a manifestation of the resolution I haven't talked about yet. And it is at the same time a powerful, open sound, giving high dynamics and impact. And yet... And yet it feels like listening to a tube amplifier. Why? There is something about the presentation that binds everything together internally, that makes the sounds not come out of the speakers, but flow out of them, if I may use such a comparison.

This was clear, for example, and with ˻ 1 ˺ Birds of Fire, a track from the MACHIAVISHNU ORCHESTRA album of the same title, and with ˻ 1 ˺ Blame It Of Eve, the title track from the SHEMEKIA COPELAND album. The former, which begins gently and softly, after a while transitions into strong guitars, a choppy rhythm, and an attack, while the latter immediately comes into rotation with a strong rhythm.

With the Copeland album, I also heard something that somehow escaped me before. I mean the lack of attempts by the system to cover up the strong attack and high compression. Maybe that's why I enjoyed listening to tracks of a quiet nature so much? Not that the strong ones sound bad, but with them you can hear the “production” of the album more strongly. So the vocals on the aforementioned album were brighter and had less volume than, for example, the vocals of Baker and Sinatra. It wasn't unpleasant, it's an excellent track, but I found that the system does not unify performances and that it differentiates them very well.

Also when it comes to the amount of bass. The Chiaras are medium-sized stand-mounted speakers, and that's how they sound. That is, the sound doesn't have as much mass and scale as from large speakers, such as the Harbeth M40.1. If I understand the designer's intentions correctly, the idea was rather to make the presentation more coherent, for it to be smooth from the very top all the way down to the very bottom (or as low as these speakers can go). And this one is soft rather than hard. Although the speakers are capable of playing spot-on and rhythmic. Rhythm, by the way, is one of the strengths of this system. But it's a smooth rhythm, not a jerky one, pleasant rather than emphatic.

▌ Summary

HERE IT IS: CHIARA + MARIA 800 SYSTEM is for people, who are not looking for “hi-fi” in music. It doesn't show isolated flavors, doesn't exude lower bass and “golden” treble. In truth, it is difficult to find “sounds” in his sound. Its analysis is possible, it is ultimately an audio system. I just don't know if it makes sense. Because the Chiaras with Maria provoke longer listening sessions and a relaxed enjoyment of the music. They achieved it without blurring the differences, softening the sound, etc., it's not like that.

The thing about their coherence. No matter how much I try not to keep repeating this term, I'll keep coming back to it anyway, because it best describes the sound of the tested system. Perhaps it is this effect of the C Wave on the listener? - I don't know, this is beyond my perceptual and introspective capabilities. What I do know, however, is that the system plays in an incredibly orderly and spatial, and multicolored, and multilevel manner. It offers a perfectly holographic presentation.

But it also doesn't play the way we're used to in audio, that is, it doesn't catch our attention with anything special. It doesn't emphasize details, it doesn't surprise us with either a strong bottom end, or with bells at the back of the stage, or with sounds behind our head that make us turn to the back only to realize with disappointment that it's “only” an illusion. At the same time, it's all THERE. And maybe that's the most important thing in all of this, such a display of music that will be on the one hand real and on the other “fabulous.” ●

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THIS TEST HAS BEEN DESIGNED ACCORDING TO THE GUIDELINES adopted by the Association of International Audiophile Publications, an international audio press association concerned with ethical and professional standards in our industry, of which HIGH FIDELITY is a founding member. More about the association and its constituent titles → HERE.

→ www.AIAP-online.org