Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems 861v8 Upgrade - USB Questions

Hello all,

I have just received my v8 upgrade today and was anxious to try the USB connection to my PC. Set up everything per Meridian's instructions and have lots of static when playing via USB.

My old setup used a USB cable into an Empirical Audio Off-Ramp USB to convert to digital coax and then into the 861. So I set this up with the v8 and it sounds fabulous! I even swapped USB cables thinking that might be it. No go.

I have uninstalled/reinstalled Meridian's USB driver, rebooted the PC, rebooted the Meridian, retyped the Meridian to start from scratch all to no avail. Very disappointing.

Anybody have any experience with this and can offer some guidance?

Thanks,
John

Did you ever get any result on this?

I have exactly the same problem: heavy "static" crackles on ID29 USB input.

No such problem on mine.

Meridian quickly sent me a second card (thanks Edd for organising that), which was considerably less crackly. But the crackles completely disappeared when I changed USB port on my (late 2008 Unibody) Macbook!

So it appears the (documented) difference in power between the two ports caused the ID29 problems. And moreover that my earlier card was more sensitive to the issue than the replacement one.

Around the same time MAudio were advising users to plug their USB audio products into specific ports depending on which Macbook it was. So it's a wider issue than Meridian, and I'm not sure it's one the audio manufacturers are going to be able to fix, particularly if the bad USB ports are simply out of spec.

With the right port, the ID29 sounds very good indeed. Much better than optical from the same Macbook. But after an evening of well-loved tracks, clearly not as good as the ID41. Still, for various reasons I'm finding myself using the ID29 a lot.

Now all we need is multichannel USB in.

I doubt it is only a Mac book issue. I have always sworn that the different USB ports on my various PC laptops work differently, with different devices and even with chargers. I wasn't nuts.