Fosi Audio Merak

Sonic Compass does not grade gear. We plot gear and listeners on the same seven axes, so a review tells you where a product sits and you can see how far that is from where you sit.

The Fosi Audio Merak is a desktop CD player with a built-in DAC and headphone amplifier. Fosi Audio sent it for review. It sits on my desktop setup, and I used it both as a headphone DAC and amp and as a transport into my own amps.

I own a number of CDs, an older Marantz SACD player and another desktop CD player, and I like physical media, so I came to this as a CD fan.

Where the Merak sits — Clean, resolving and smooth rather than warm or bright. The Cirrus Logic DAC chip family sits, to my ear, between the analytical ESS sound and the warmer AKM sound, and that suits me. I have not heard a poorly implemented one yet. Strongest axes are Space, Detail and Dynamics.

Bass and mids — Weighty, with a good low end and no mud, even on dense metal.

Treble — Detailed and sparkly without sibilance when played within its limits. At the top of the volume range the headphone output can sound spicy and distorted.

Stage — Excellent. Guitars and drums float around my head on Megadeth, and the Helloween track wraps all around me.

Build and design — A square aluminium block, silver-grey, about 15 cm each way, with a transparent top-loading lid. It is designed to stack with Fosi's amps and streamers. Watching the disc spin and the laser track is part of the appeal. There is no eject button: lift the lid and swap the disc. It comes with a USB-A to USB-C cable and a remote, but no power adapter, and it needs a clean 5 V 2 A supply or the servo can stutter. The lid has no latch and there is no battery, so despite the box calling it portable it is a desktop or hi-fi stack unit. The volume slider is an analogue-style slide control with a pleasant step feel, but it only controls the headphone output and does nothing on the rear outputs. Buttons are small, and I found them fiddly with big fingers. The display is a small OLED.

Connections and features — Headphone output is a single-ended 3.5 mm jack, 210 mW into 32 ohms (maker). Rear: 3.5 mm line out, optical out as a digital transport, a 12 V trigger out and USB-C power. There is a button for electronic skip protection (ESP). I think it is probably unnecessary on a stationary unit but harmless.

One-touch ripping — Plug a FAT32 USB drive (up to 128 GB) into the back, insert a CD and press the rip button on the front. It copies the disc in real time to the drive as uncompressed 16-bit 44.1 kHz WAV files, with no computer. The downside is that it does not fetch track names, so files are named track one, track two and so on, and you have to rename them.

Comparison — I did not compare it directly. My other players are an old Marantz SA8005 and a much larger desktop player, so it would not be a fair match against this little unit. It looks small next to my Aune A17 and Gustard A30. If I get similar CD players from Shanling, SMSL and others I will compare them later.

Read this against your own profile — I want a capable, affordable CD player with a good DAC, a modest built-in headphone amp, an optical transport out and computer-free ripping. If that is you, it fits. It is not a portable player.

Honest limits — The unit was sent by the maker. By ear only, with no measurements. No direct comparison with another CD player. I made no remark on timing or on long-session comfort beyond the comments on treble above, so Timing and Comfort sit near the middle with thin evidence. Specs are the maker's.