Mark Levinson formed Daniel Hertz in 2007 to create new audio technology that brings us closer to the emotion of live music and replaces the marketing-driven business model of the industry, putting honesty, engineering, and the customer first.
The results can now be experienced through Daniel Hertz branded products, and Daniel Hertz technology can be licensed to other companies across many industries that are committed to enhancing the love of music.
The original commitment of Mark Levinson in 1972 was to create the best music systems in the world, and his work has upheld that commitment in audio since then. Today this responsibility is continued personally by Mark Levinson and his team of engineers, managers, and craftspeople, at Daniel Hertz. Like makers of the finest musical instruments, Daniel Hertz is committed to fulfilling a vision of excellence in audio, with products made without compromise to create emotion, not just sound.
One thing that sets Daniel Hertz apart from other audio companies is the fact that our founder, Mark Levinson, is an accomplished professional musician who has played and studied with some of the greatest jazz artists of the era, like John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, Paul Bley, Jimmy Garrison, and Stan Getz. His 50+ years of studying the classical music of North India with maestro Ali Akbar Khan and his associates trained his ears to new levels of sensitivity. His iconic recordings in the 1970s, with custom-built pure analog open reel tape recording equipment, started the audiophile record industry. Mark Levinson’s life in music gives Daniel Hertz its soul.
Daniel Hertz SA. headquarters is located in Switzerland with a division, Daniel Hertz S.rl., in Venice Italy. This enables us to collaborate closely with artisanal suppliers of premium parts and services that are not available elsewhere and are essential for achieving our vision of quality and elegance.
Mark Levinson wanted a family name for his new company, so he used Daniel, his father's first name, and Hertz, his mother’s maiden name. Mark's relative, Heinrich Hertz, was the German physicist first to demonstrate the electromagnetic wave, thus the beginning of audio. Hertz (Hz ) is the internationally used term for cycles per second, named in his honor. Heinrich Hertz was one of a group of scientists and inventors who made the discoveries that built the base of modern electronics as we know it today.
Why Daniel Hertz?
Mark Levinson founded Daniel Hertz to make music reproduction feel more like live music as well as more affordable, compact, elegant, easy to use, and flexible.
Vitality
The excitement of listening to live music is very different from the sound coming from speakers which is – more often than not – boring. Daniel Hertz brings vitality – the life energy we feel when we are in the presence of musicians playing in life – with new technology and solutions not previously available.
Pure analog sound from digital audio including streaming
DH C Wave technology is the first upgrade to digital audio since it was introduced in the 1970’s. Years of research and development prove that the human brain likes continuous waveforms but has a stress reaction to the non-continuous waveform of digital audio. Patented C Wave uses a finely tuned algorithm to fill in the spaces between the samples, enabling the brain to respond more like to the continuous waveform of pure analog audio.
DH Mighty Cat chip
Daniel Hertz Maria amplifer is built with the proprietary Mighty Cat amplifier IC with embedded software and the internal blocks to run C Wave. No other chip has this capability. All audio is C Wave processed on the fly, including music files, streaming, movie sound tracks, digitally mastered LP’s, and internet audio.
Speaker tuning and headphone tuning
Maria has fine tuning capabilities to bring out the best in all good speakers and headphones. Just as a musical instrument like a piano, violin or guitar, comes to life when it is carefully tuned, audio transducers also benefit. The human ear can detect changes of .2dB, but non-linearities in the frequency response of even the best speakers and headphones are typically much larger.
Maria tunings are captured on small files called hex files. Using a Windows PC, Maria hex files can be installed to change the tuning of speakers and headphones in around 30 seconds. DH customer support can do the changes anywhere in the world using Teamviewer. This makes Maria a living product that can be updated in the future if the need arises.
Integration
People who buy the best audio components are told they need a separate DAC, preamplifier, power amplifier, interconnect cables and accessories. Daniel Hertz Maria performs the functions of all these, with superior sound and more than enough power to drive any speaker. Separate components introduce coloration that comes from multiple chassis, power supplies, grounding issues, loading issues, and so forth. Maria has the shortest and most elegant signal throughpath possible.
Higher efficiency speakers
Speakers can do only two things – turn electrical energy into sound or heat. The lower the efficiency, the more heat. The higher the efficiency, the more acoustic output. Daniel Hertz builds higher efficiency speakers to generate more acoustic output, that gives music the life and vitality as well as natural sound, deep bass, superb imaging, smooth frequency response and low distortion.
DH Speaker cables (4M pair) are included
Daniel Hertz is plug and play. No experiments or risks – everything just works out of the box.
DH Master Class software
No matter what the performance of the music system is, recordings vary in sound because they are made differently one from the other, by engineers using different kinds of recording and monitoring equipment. DH Master Class audio software for Mac enables the listener to be the mastering engineer, and make new C Wave processed tracks with the sound and emotion of pure analog tape. The new MC versions can be played on any device – Mac, Windows PC, server, phone, or a car audio system. MC is for the most demanding non-technical music lovers, fast and simple to use with a bit of practice.