Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Should I get the 588 CD player?

Without wanting to argue in anyway about your findings, in your scenario,

* the 588 will send an analog stream to the 568,
* the 568 will then convert it from Analog back to Digital
* assuming Direct (stereo) mode, the 568 will then convert back from Digital to Analog (assuming you are outputting to an Analog amp and speakers)

In that scenario, the 568 would use the same DAC`s as if you had sent it the Digital out from the 588 in the first place. Therefore, I am not sure how the “DAC`s are better in the 588 than the 568”.

I believe that the perceived difference may be due to other reasons, as essentially, the final D/A conversion is done by the 568, whether it is connected by Analog or Digital out to the 588.

Also interesting that the CD goes thru Three conversion stages (D to A in the 588; A to D in 568; D to A in the 568) and still sounds better than a One stage conversion (D to D transfer and then D to A conversion in the 568)

Certainly, the Meridian (and other manfacturers`) people would be very surprised at this, as it is generally accepted that keeping the conversion stages to a minimum, is best practice.

The Nordost Red Dawn Analog interconnects are obviously very good. Is there any chance that the perceived performance difference is due to the Digital interconnect being used is not of the same high standard?? Also, I assume you are using the Coaxial digital out (rather than the Optical) from the 588??

Certainly, my own experience has been that a 598 (as a transport only) is at least as good, if not ever so slightly better, than the 588 for normal Redbook CD replay. (For what it`s worth, Meridian also claim that the 598 is a better CD transport better than 588, as it offers lower jitter)

As they say, One man`s meat is another man`s poison!!


[This message has been edited by RHurley (edited 09-16-2003).]

[This message has been edited by RHurley (edited 09-16-2003).]

wery interesting indeed.

Everyhing you say is correct. Possibly it is the cables, but to my ears it DOES sound much better this way. I think that Meridian would recommend the straight digital connection for the reasons you state. Things don't always turn out as expected. The difference between 598 as a transport and the 588 (analog connections) is quite striking. When I asked Meridian if the 598 RBCD playback was equal to the 588 they were very guarded with their reply. Something along the lines that the 598 is very good (at CD playback)with the smartlink. There is a lot of extra electronics in the 598 which may explain some of it.

One extra point. The digital connection is a Moonglow Silver Shadow which is pretty much in the same league as the Red Dawn.

I thought that with the 598 you could choise weather to use it as a transport only or decode inside player.

Conventional wisdom would sugest using 598 as a transport would be best as there would be less sets of D-A:A-D.

But I have found that to my ears that I prefare to use the 598 with "decode in player" set to yes then feed the 568.2 via smart let it do its stuff ,direct Trifield or whatever, and this setup produces the best results.

How do you all have yours setup?
BTW amp and speakers none M.

Skooby

I believe that the “Decode Bitstream in Player” option only applies to Bitstreams like Dolby Digital and DTS, not to 2-Channel Redbook CD`s.

I do not believe that setting this option to Yes or No makes any difference to performance with regular CD`s

Obviously, setting this option to Yes, then allows the 568.2 or 861 V3 to Upsample DD and DTS to 96/24.

RHurley,

AS to my previous post the impression I got from my dealer was that the decode option told the player to be DAC or transport only.

In that case how do you set the 598 as transport only, is it the case that using the smart link defaults the player to transport only?

skooby

Skooby
The Smart Link, SPDIF and Optical connections on the back of the 598 take the DIGITAL stream out of the 598 out to the processor.

The Smart Link has more bandwidth to carry more information and allows for example MultiChannel digital audio streams to be transmitted between the 598 and e.g. 568.2.

In a way that is perhaps easier to understand, the Smart Link connection between an 800 and 861 consists of 3 Individual Digital Connection Cables between the 2 units. When playing a DVD-A for example, each of the 3 cables will carry 2 channels each of the 5.1 mix on the DVD-A. Each of the streams is still Digital though.

Equally, when the 598 or 800 is asked to “Decode Bitstreams” it will “split” the DD or DTS stream into separate channels. This then allows the 568.2 and 861 more processing power to allow for upsampling of DD from 48/16 to 96/24.

If “Decode Bitstream” is set to No on the 598 or 800, then the 598/800 will output a SINGLE Digital stream to the 568/861. The 568/861 then decodes and processes the stream into the 6 channels, resulting in DD/DTS at 48/16

In each of the above cases, the 598/800 will act as a Digital “Transport” only and the output is not converted to Analog at any stage.

The only output stream from the 598 that goes thru a Digital to Analog conversion (DAC) is the stream output on the Analog outputs.

Hope this helps??

It's very interesting to read some of the preferences, and the Audio twilight involved here, The Smart link and it's interface are for locking and securing of the DVD-A streams and implement the MHR data from any of the now current Meridian units. The pure reasons for this is there is still a debate out on how to interface DVD-A as copy protection is still an issue, hence no SPDIF DVD-A systems. The other way the bat can swings is the Firewire options that have been talked about again and again. In regards to how this thread started the 588 and 596 are both amazing machines, they both have very similar output modules. In regards to running into the processors, the Digital Input Receiving systems the Meridian's use make it so that the data is smooth and correct as the perfect Input receiver would sound pretty much the same regardless of the transport driving it, It is then taken a step further using the FIFO Ram based de-jittering system to smooth out the differences. It is a long debate and I would think it's more worth while listening to Music, after all thats what Hi-Fi is for. Also seen lots of talk about the G-Series, It's funtion is to replace the aged 500 series, and it also looks pretty funky too, As you will notice on the arrival the model numbers are mostly the same but with the 5 replaced by the G! There are some changes but no reason not too buy a 500 series over in my humble opinion. To be honest I think that 500 looks allot nicer and cleaner than the G. But there are some added features as I'm sure you will all find out.