Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Synergistic "Meridian" cables; worth it?

You people are nuts! With digital the cable make no difference whatsoever. By all means waste your money though. I know this guy selling solid gold cables for $1000 a meter.

It is not really possible to build a true 75 Ohm RCA connector. Canare may come in the ballpark, but they are not true 75 Ohm. I do, however, use all Canare connectors myself. In fact, I re-wired using Belden 1694A last month. I too use the Belden 1694A for analog connections as well as digital and video.

I also have the Syner... com adapter. It has the comm on one end and an RF on the other. It makes it realy easy. (sure beats soldering)

[This message has been edited by sspears (edited 12-20-2003).]

Can you tell us more about the "Syner... com adapter"?

Randy,
if I take the time to point out that differences in digital cables are right at the edge of our perception and some people can and some people cannot hear it, how much of an idiot does that make you to then come along and say they make no difference?
Would it not have been far smarter to say, I can't hear a difference? Now you've made yourself appear stupid and deaf

Mark

Stacy,

Just want to make sure -- you use the 1694A coax. cable for analog connections running from your preamp to your amps as well? You put RCA's or 3-pin balanced on these?

A dealer in Holland uses Nordost Optix 75 ohm video cable to connect the Meridian speakers and Gear. He says it is "The dog's bollocks" and claims a huge improvement in sound....

If you look at look at other digital cables you will see that the data sent through a digital coax cable is about as simple as it gets. The digital coax sends about 4.6M bits/s. This is a fairly low rate by today`s standards. HDMI send 5G bits/s. USB 2.0 480M bits/s. With modern electronics we can get multi mega bits/s through a long twisted pair phone line for use in a DSL modem. On CAT5+ cable we get ~1000M bits/s on 100ft+ runs.

If you start with a decent signal which I assume all players that high-end audio guys buy will have, I would even bet that a $69 player at Wal-Mart might have a decent signal now in the year 2004. If you have a decent signal, cables will not make any difference, none, no difference at all, not even a small tiny difference only heard by children and small animals. Now if you lay your cable on a water pipe or steel beam in your basement you can corrupt your signal. But the cable you use with not matter. If you plan on very long runs your cable will matter.

Are there any companies that make the MHR cable thats the D-type connection from 598 yo 568.2 as I believe that cables do make a difference even in the digital domain.

Also is it possavle ( I think it is but not sure) to use the 3 RCA option to connect my combo (as in the 800/861) and which digital interconnects would you recoment for this, what cables do 800/861 owner use?

And would this be supiorir to the M MHR link supplied which look like a SVGA cable just wire up diferently.

BTW I have a 2ch setup only so if the 3 RCA option does not work in a multi ch system that is not a problem for me.

Skooby

Sedluk,
you've lost the plot there.
HDMI and DVI both use TMDS which is resistant to cable problems.
Gigabit LAN never actually works at 1000MBit, even over short distances frames get dropped at such speeds, but with correctly sized packets, it's not an issue - who cars if they only get 999MBit, it's not like it's slower than 100BaseT.
SPDIF is an appalling interface, designed by a comittee (much like Eurotel/SCART) that doesn't work particularly well in it's pro incarnation as AES/EBU using 110 Ohm balanced connectors (which are really 110 Ohm as far as I'm aware) In consumer form it's nominally 75Ohms, but since no real RCA connector has a 75Ohm characteristic impedance, and many are about 30Ohms, it's incredibly bad.

Decent signal? Well, if your hearing isn't sensitive enough to pick up on cabling issues (which is a blessing, seriously) then I would imagine the jitter out of a $99 DVD player isn't that bad.
The only decent SPDIF outputs I know of are on Meridian and Theta players, where high levels of reclocking are established between transport and output. Everyone else relies on brute force engineering of the transport mechanism - nice in principle, not as effective or elegant as buffering.

Mark
PS Aren't Nordost Optix rather pricey? I know of someone who will do very good SPDIF leads with Canare near-75 Ohm connectors at good prices.

Mudge,
You are mixing two issues, jitter and signal strength.
If you have a brand name middle of the road DVD player, I am saying that you will get good signal strength out of the unit. If you have good signal strength then the signal will get to the other end with a decent cable. If the digital bits are getting to the other side then improving the cable will not improve anything.

If you have a player that has no jitter or a lot of jitter, then improving the cable will not change the jitter. Cable quality makes a difference on a digital signal until the digital bits are getting across the cable, after getting the correct bits across improving cable quality makes no difference.

My point with the comparisons to other interfaces is that with a digital signal in 2004 we no longer need “gold infused laser etched multi-polymer substrate” cable to get the sound from one unit to another. That simple looking cable that Meridian supplies with their equipment will do just fine. If you are making your own cable, always use quality cable and quality connector and take your time and do a good job. Enjoy the fact that we do not need the $1,000+ cables that the analog guys need.