Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Better Source Labelling on Meridian Systems

Understand the question, but think that is one of the reasons why there is something called Meridian 800, a little more of everything.

I think the point was that, even if you have the 800, the speakers won't display custom source names. Not even 8000s...

To be fair to Meridian, you could consider the Sooloos interface the UI. This is excellent. If it was iPad app or DSP display, I'd choose app. That said, the displays are a little dated but to be truly British, there has to be a big let down somewhere...

Haha, yes.

I just find it a little frustrating that, having made a big investment in 818 and Sooloos, I can have all that rich functionality and custom labelling (and with vMSR even custom labels ON the remote) but my speakers will just end up showing something random, and generally outdated in terms of source labelling.

I think it's just annoying that the functionality is clearly there - I recall a few threads a while back where people were modifying Config in some way to do this, etc., until Meridian clamped down on firmware mods in general following people messing with apodising.

Let me be clear - I have no desire to mess with Meridian's copyrights in any way, and they are also right to protect their IP. However, I also think that throwing the baby out with the bath water is overkill, and since we all know the ability is there, it would be nice if Meridian themselves addressed this, or simply opened up custom naming in firmware while leaving more sensitive aspects encrypted, etc.

Or, alternatively, for those with a source capable of custom names, just have the DSP display mirror that on the source - in a way the easiest solution all round?

If you can modify the firmware to change the filter coefficients, you can definitely modify it to change the display lables on a DSP.

Whether anyone would be brave enough to do it is another matter.

This would be the neatest solution, but I suspect that Meridian comms* (which has been around for 20 years and was designed in a world of 7-segment displays) isn't capable of this.

* Edit: Current comms (the 200/600 comms system is an example of at least one previous incarnation of Meridian comms). Nothing to say that Meridian couldn't create a new system, but that might be problematic for older (e.g. 500-series kit). Still, nice to have the option...

Not any more since firmware update process and images were changed to allow checking of the 'authenticity' of firmware image prior to upload.

Aside from the small sample size of 'valid' firmwares, if you can break the authentication mechanism on things like digital evidence cameras, a hi-fi company's firmware isn't going to be that difficult.

I don't think it's very productive to start discussing hacking anything - this is why Meridian, understandably, clamped down in the first place. I think they may have gone a little far in locking out this kind of functionality, though and user firmware updates - where I live, that involves huge expense just to get to the dealer, being on an island with no hi-fi dealerships at all!

It might be better to encourage Meridian themselves to take the lead on this and implement this feature properly, or just simply a larger selection of more modern source names, if it can't be made to simply mirror what's set on the source.

a new revision of the Comms protocol (that includes dynamic labeling) would be very appreciated ... I suspect most of the M-Audio "extra" engineering know-how has been used on the automotive products lately.

However, they are clearly now owned by a luxury company, and as a luxury brand the labeling should be "automatic".

Certain topics come up again & again, and this is one of them. I wish it could be fixed, along with 3dit0r's other suggestions :-)

I've not done it yet, but it seems that to change the source labels (choosing from the archaic predetermined list) you only have to change the label on the Master DSP. So at some level at least the labelling is already being controlled by Comms.

That's a good point, so maybe the master DSP could also have it's display controlled/fed by the source/endpoint?