I´ve been told Meridians sound clinical.
I have a dacmagic, but can only compare it to a Cyrus cd7 (and
Arcam alpha 9) on my Nuforce ai-7 class d amp (and Kelvin labs cl. A)
and Acoustat spectra they sound extremely good.
I know there is always better but i dont want to spend a couple of grand extra for a moderate improvement.
At least second hand stuff is affordable in the UK, here in Holland they really take the piss! (I wrote a topic about it, but its in dutch)