Strictly necessary cookies keep you signed in. Optional ones help us see which pages land and which don't. Pick what you want — you can change it any time. Details.
DACs
Convert digital with Swiss discipline — handbuilt DACs from the Dafraud workshop in Worb.
where to hear it
brand intel · public snapshot
rooms in 0 states
rooms outside the US
frequently carried alongside
public snapshot · members get the full intel for their brand portfolio · see how →
about merason
Merason is the audio brand of Dafraud GmbH, a Swiss company founded by Daniel Frauchiger in 2013; the first Merason product, the DAC1, reached the market in 2015. The engineering premise is a discrete, no-shortcuts digital-to-analog converter — careful power supplies, a fully balanced signal path, and a discrete analog output stage built around Burr-Brown/TI PCM1794 delta-sigma converters — built and finished by hand in Switzerland rather than assembled from a reference design. The line centers on the flagship DAC1, now in MK II form, and the smaller frérot ("little brother"), which brings the house sound to a lower price and footprint. The range is rounded out by matching accessories including the pow1 external power supply for the frérot, so a buyer can stage an upgrade path within the brand rather than replacing the converter outright. Merason sits in the boutique-DAC conversation alongside makers like Denafrips, Holo Audio, and the Swiss and German cottage converter houses — buyers cross-shop on analog-stage quality, build, and the appeal of a low-volume handbuilt source over a mass-market chip DAC. In the US it is distributed by Well Pleased Audio Vida and also retailed through Atelier 13 Audio. English-language press coverage is solid for an import this size, with reviews in Twittering Machines and Positive Feedback among others. Products are designed and assembled in Switzerland at the Dafraud workshop in Worb, near Bern.