Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems I've done it

I bought some 18-bit DSP 5ks in the Restaurant and took delivery today. All connected and working fine fed direct from the my iPod and Onkyo ND-S1. Not as holographic as one previous set-up, but that had 5 links in the chain and was hardware-limited to 2 channels. Now I'm getting 2 channels from essentially 2 links.

Now I need to unpack the 5KC I bought months ago, plug them all into my 568.2mm and configure it. But I don't have time right now to figure out all the connections. Will it be as simple as daisy-chaining everything together with comms cables and star-wiring the signal cables off the 568? I was worried by the statement on Page 8 of the 568.2 user manual which states:

Meridian 511 S-patch Box
Provides a convenient way to interconnect the S leads between
up to eight Meridian DSP digital loudspeakers. It is required if
your 568.2 system includes more than two DSP loudspeakers.

But no 511 is shown in the picture on page 6. Do I need one to use 3 DSP5Ks with a 568.2mm?

AFAIK no. Put it another way, I don't have a slave box for for my 3 DSP33s with my G68; the comms cables are, as you say daisy-chained off each other and the signals cables come from the processor directly.

Same for me, as david, same setup, same advice.

I run 3 DSP's without the 511 too

You don't need the 511. Many of us just daisy-chain the comms.

Whether you need a 511 patch is simply down to the position of the speakers relative to the processor and each other.

You can daisy chain, but the S lead of the centre must be able to reach both another speaker with spare comms out and the processor. You may find that you need to split the shotgun S lead into the comms and audio to make this easier.

I personally ran the comms Y adaptor supplied with my sub which gave me two comms outputs from the master speaker. The audio side then ran back to the processor.

You can of course run comms and audio on two completely different leads rather than the shotgun double S lead. Another alternative is to run the furthest (ie R) speakers off of the centre comms and master audio (ie L) - again, this will require splitting the shotgun cable of the furthest (R) speaker so that it will reach both the master speaker (ie L) for audio and centre for comms.

Thanks to all; I think I understand. I wonder why such unnecessary instructions in the manual? I do think things moved on quite a lot between the 1st release of 5Ks and later ones. The 24/96 DSP5K manual is much better and more helpful than the 18-bit one (to supplement what I'm reading here), and I believe the topology won't have changed, just some config settings. However it does still mention the 511. It will probably be 2-3 weeks before I get round to trying to cable it up and (shudder) trying to use the old version of mconfig to configure the 568.

Ian - I'm a woo-cable fan and am using Russ Andrews DV-75 for my digital connections where possible rather than the wet piece of string Meridian provides [ducks for cover]! However, I can't afford one long enough to link L to R, so am somewhat compromised. Other than that, length/positioning should not be a problem as none of my other cables is doing double duty.

To further antagonise the rationalists: I swear the 5Ks sounded better after I swapped the supplied mains leads for Russ Andrews Reference power cables.

Rgds,
Duncan

Hi Duncan,

You might find this thread interesting (or amusing).

Snake oil

I wonder if we are any further with this debate 5 years on (I doubt it somehow)

Cheers