Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Bristol hi fi show

Always looked forward to the Meridian's dem at the Marriot and missed that over the last few years and ventured to Sevenoaks when they moved. So with no presence again this year what are your views, do Meridian have nothing new to say, or are they just too big for the show?

How many installers (or their clients) go to the Bristol show? If you are trying to contain costs you have to be highly selective.

Meridian products will be on limited demonstration at Bristol. Their 857 and Ultra DAC are being used by Dali.

Contain costs. Probably in the U.K. The most visited show to exhibit your wares.

I visited the Dali room with the Ultra DAC on show playing through their speakers and as much as I wanted to be excited by the sound featuring MQA I did not think the speakers did a £15000 DAC justice. For me what was even worse that the the room was manned by two young girls who could not answer any detailed questions on the system.

I was quite surprised to here from the dealers and manufactures the resentment towards MQA, possibly based on liscensing fees. All in all probably a lost opportunity by Meridian this weekend to take the competition by storm.

Oh well there is always next year.

Deja vu?

I knew instantly that the Dalis were connected using Chord cables, mainly because there were huge signs throughout the room to alert me to that. I almost missed the incidental tid-bit that they were running on Meridian's latest uber DAC and amp, so discrete was their advertising.

I agree that the speakers could not have been doing them justice as the sound quality was unremarkable: good, but nothing as arresting as in many of the other rooms. Not too many people lingering for a longer listen while I was there. Not really best foot forward.

OTOH, I had my first proper listen to the Devialet Phantoms. A fair bit bigger than F80s, but I was very impressed (except for that blingy gold cladding that pollutes their sides). At the other end of the spectrum design-wise (wooden crates on top of pallets), the Harbeths had the most natural sound to my ears of anything I heard at the show. Didn't catch the speaker model though.

I did not go but I read elsewhere someone commenting that the Dalis did not sound as good as the Spendors next door but with no mention of Meridian.

Meridian might have done better having a booth downstairs promoting Explorers and their headphone gear playing MQA.

Long gone are the days of closed-door demonstrations of full systems lead by Bob, who would also answer questions.

They are not the same company as they were 5 years ago and I think we all need to accept that and make our choices accordingly.

Very true.

The demo with Dali sounded ok, probably hovering around average i would say.

The speakers were very shiny though!

Meridian's presence was too discrete in my opinion, no mention of MQA whatsoever either.

Bluesound did a good job of showing MQA though.