Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion HiFi & HT Chat DSP 9000's ???

As an unknown audiofile of absolute insignificance in the world of hi-fidelity, I can't help but wondering sometimes as to what the ultimate loudspeaker would be like.

During my travels and the experiences enjoyed during dealer visits the reoccurring concept of point source reproduction sticks in my mind. I've heard (and owned) Feastrex drivers but felt that one driver alone could never quite do it without some serious DSP correction, later a reality on the Lotus Granada .

Of course these Lowther type drivers aren't the only way, there's my own Quads which have a decent stab at it, there's Tannoy of course and Thiel Audio and TAD amongst others I'm sure.

I had the a most pleasurable hour with the TAD E1's whilst in Japan, not understanding that there were the "entry level" models and it was the Reference One that was THE speaker. The recent CES reviews/praise had brought them back to my attention.

I wonder what could be achieved if Meridian and TAD got their heads together?

A range of models with the same concentric top/mid driver and different bass modules scaled to suit listening room sizes (volumes), powered by DAC-less NAD style direct PCM-PWM conversion built in amp modules with Meridians DSP know how sorting the crossovers and tweaky bits as in the present 8K's.

Well, that would be my fag packet sketch of audio nirvana - where would you start?

Dsp6000's but if I had the room dsp8000's.

Years ahead of their time.

Cheers
Greg

Mmmm I'm not sure that relabelling the 6ks as 9ks and announcing the new Reference standard to the hi-fi press would be that successful

It would reduce the R&D costs for the project though, I'll give you that...

Why you want better driver in the 8k?
Are they are bad,are the result are bad?
The concept of a digital speaker is different of an active speaker and a passive speaker.
You dont need expensive chassis with flat frequency response and superwide frequency range.
You even need the same effiency to match the voliume of the different chassis.
You dont need more chassis just to adjust the volume to the other cahssis that are working in a different frequency range.
You do not need care of the phase of the chassis.You do not need take care of the placement in timing of the chassis,
iam speaking here that all chassis first wave front hit the listeners at the same time.
All that you can do near perfect "just" with a proper sw and hardware.You do not need big lossy frequency crossovers,
you just need very short speaker cables to to each amplifier top control the chassis.
You dont need power amplifier with expensive and ugly cable laying around just to heat up the frequency crossovers and the remaining power for the "good" chassis.
You can extend the low range of the speakers in a way that other solution as digital speaker never can do proper.
So for what you need all that expensive and lightyears behind clever concepts speaker manufacturers and parts of their product?
Read and think to understand the difference what M makes and what all other makes.
For example "your" lotus speakers costs 125.000 U$ and have the a "big innovation"- active crossovers..
So after decades that M have that in their speakers, Lotus have some now..
"real" impressive...
I dont say M speakers are perfect, there is still some parts to improve,
but M dont need support from old fashioned(but in the bad way) designers/developers/manufactures,
they are not real competitors.
Sorry, when i maybe to emotional here, but that is my point of view.

Im considering redriving with Skan Speak lluminators for my 3.0 DSP 6Ks.
Their mid band detail and extension is state of the art
The tweets are older but match
Expensive for vintage ,but effective. angel.

First I'll preface these comments with the observation that I very much enjoy all the Meridian loudspeakers I own and on the whole consider them to be very good performers. Now that we have that out of the way...

DSP based crossovers can not eliminate sonic artifacts due to cone or dome break-up modes and other non-linear or resonant behavior. Or reduce whatever harmonic distortion and compression is intrinsic to the driver design. While I very much enjoy my DSP6k fronts and the DSP5k rears in my big rig, the driver quality is clearly the limiting factor in these design. I've owned other passive loudspeakers with much better tweeters (Dynaudio Esotar) and superior mid-bass drivers that despite being saddled with (well designed) passive crossovers clearly outperformed my DSP6ks in some respects. I'd love to see what Meridian could do if they really pulled out the stops and used some of the best raw drivers currently available.

Happy Trails!
MTB Vince

Interesting thread.
Personally I prefer the presentation style of horns, or at least horn loaded speakers.

Recently heard a pair of JBL K2s, which came across as about close to my own view of "perfect" (maybe that should be written as "least compromised"), as any speaker I've heard. I'd love to hear what a pair of those would sound like if Meridian sprinkled their DAC, DSP and amplifier technology "magic" over them.

The HFN 2010 review of the JBL pair was quite interesting.

Well said, Vince Hoffmann.. although I think you are poking at the elephant in the room.

Does anyone find it curious that essentially the same SEAS tweeter is used across the Meridian range - from 5k entry to 8k flagship. It retails at ~�150 - so OEM cost less than �50, �30 even? And the design is over 20 years old. It's limited power handling, tendency to buzz, and (both sudden and slow) deterioration in HF response have been covered in this forum. I've replaced quite a few over the past 20 years of owning Meridian!

Quite frankly, I'm surprised - baffled? - embarrassed? - to find it used in the 8k, which in all other aspects is simply magnificent.

It sounds very nice, but surely we can expect some advance in tweeter sound quality in 20 years? SEAS should do us all a favour and manufacture a drop-in mechanical/electrical replacement using its best SOTA expertise. I for one would buy 5 tomorrow, even at premium Excel/Exotic prices, and probably many others would. Meridian could even use it as a new stock unit, don't you think?

Sure there would also be a large aftermarket for drop-in SOTA 5k bass drivers. And what wbout 8k mid & bass, marvellous as they are? How old are these drivers in a >10 year design?

I share Vince's sentiments: drivers have undoubtedly improved. I would love to see Meridian/SEAS take it to the next level - far greater potential for sound improvement than tinkering with firmware (worthwhile, undoubtedly), you would think