Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems A Meeting for Hikers in Huntingdon: Interest Check

Tom,

Because lots of installations don't want to use the other connections (think music in a kitchen, for example). I only need a Sooloos/Roon endpoint and for that hiding it in a speakers as one can do with the MS200 is perfect.

The issue will be moot once Roon does the first unfold, as there are no in-wall SEs but the sentiment will remain the same.

Sorry, does Roon not unfold MQA yet?

By the tone of VK's post, it sounded like lack of pertinent MQA unfolding is a Meridian only problem.

ROON does not unfold yet. We are told it’s coming but no time frame promised.

Changing the subject isn't helpful here Ian. Meridian essentially sold us a incomplete solution which was nothing more than the minimum needed for MQA/SE development and demonstration. M needs to sort this out.

And why exactly is that? Perhaps because Roon has product aspirations which are pushing more boundaries than others (including Meridian)?

Yes you are right. That is a scenario that they should be catering for and I expect they will do.

From feedback it sounds like M should be supplying the following new products:


218 for external display

MS200 type device with MQA

MS200 type device with MQA for external display

8 series card for MQA

8 series media player

8 series media player for external display

Would be interested to see what people would prioritise if they were Meridian and over what time period.

Cheers
Tom

Meridian should also be adopting RAAT if they can.

Is there any particular reason they are not adopting RAAT? Cost? Resource?

I appreciate that Meridian are prioritising the CI market at the moment.

However, given the current 200 series product line up, it's not too difficult to imagine a 218 (or 251) in an AC200 case, or a 218 (or 251) combined with the upcoming 210 in a G-Series case (or in an AC200 case if they can fit it all in). I'd also speculate that they could also squeeze the 251/210 combination into a M80 type box if they wanted.

Also, in response to an earlier question, "The integrated Home: News Blog" suggested that the UHD722 will be in the 200 series casework (suggested price looked a bit on the high side though). The same blog also mentions the addition of a mono switch to the M6 speaker, so they can be used as a single speaker. Interestingly, it also mentions that MQA (from a 218) can be passed through an AC200 to SE speakers, which you currently can't do with a G series processor or an 861 (OK, it's not much use as you'd simply replace the AC200 with the 218). I'm not sure if that's old news or not.

Brian

P.S. Nearly forgot to express my thanks to Nick, Rick, John, Rayner and all of the other HH members attending.

I thoroughly enjoyed the meeting, thank you Nick for making it happen. Admittedly most of the feel good factor came from mixing with like minded sensible people who were passionate about Meridian and had extensive knowledge about the M product range, be it old or new.

When the meeting was originally proposed, perhaps we were naïve with our expectations on what might be achieved if M themselves were to participate. To their credit M did appear and I am very thankful for this. A lot of other similarly sized companies would likely have chickened out. Perhaps in recognition of this, there was a sense within the room that we shouldn’t put the boot in, by asking embarrassing questions. Nick had also set the scene right at the start that we shouldn’t expect any product announcements, secrets etc.

It is fair to say that the HH’s present were probably not your typical NEW M user. For one thing I could see that (of those who have declared it on the forum), the average number of different M products owned by each member was a staggeringly high SEVEN. This reflects the fact that we are all exceptionally loyal to the M brand for many years. Most of us still have a fair amount of legacy equipment that we cannot bear to sell and often re-distrubute in other rooms around the house. However we still on average each owned FOUR current day M products and 50% of us own the not in-expensive SE speakers.

At the meeting I had wondered whether M had a mission statement. Well, John B’s first slide showed exactly that (at least I think it was, as I couldn’t find it on their web site?). I find these statements useful because are they are unambiguous and often will allow both staff and customers alike to understand what the company is really about, what is important and what is not – i.e. where their focus resides.

Not unusually for a company that has a technical bias, the M mission statement was largely about technical expertise and audio quality. To be fair that’s why we probably all purchased M equipment in the first instance. We didn’t buy because we thought we would get great customer support, although we may well have felt we are owed it because we paid out top dollar.

As I recall, the mission statement mentioned the word ‘customer’ pretty much in isolation, almost added because someone felt any mission statement worth it’s salt had to include the ‘C’ word. Consequently my take was that customer support is probably not high up in the list of things M aspire to. I personally don’t have a problem with this, my main interest is to see new quality product releases. In that regard, despite the frequent moaning on this forum, I truly believe M are punching above their weight with the frequency of new product releases. Forget the fact that many releases run late, in to-day’s modern world where software is king, lateness is an unfortunate fact of life.

I felt John B let himself down trying make such a big thing about M having 110 ‘dealers’ in the UK. From the M side of the fence it is indeed great that there might be over 100 UK companies out there capable of selling their equipment. We all knew however that the vast majority of that number comprised CI type companies. I would imagine that a mere handful of the CI’s in particular would have any knowledge whatsoever about configuring an 861 or G95, running room correction etc. Many of the meeting participants probably own more M equipment than some of these companies have actually themselves sold.

Despite our misgivings about the true size of ‘dealership’ network, the fact is that in the UK we are very fortunate to even have multiple dealers. Many countries have just one dealer and in some cases there might just be a dealer covering a whole region.

In today’s modern world, unless you are a large multi-national, it is exceptionally difficult to get a particular brand name into the public domain. When we tell friends we have ‘M’ equipment, the norm is that they openly admit they have never heard the name Meridian. The real worldly M knowledge largely resides with users like ourselves and a few dealers. As others have suggested, it’s a shame there can’t be some way of harnessing that knowledge and allowing NEW M users to access it. For example it would be great if M on their own website were brave enough to promote or make reference to the forum, where 'a wealth of technical information could be obtained'. There might be an understandable reluctance to do so, because it could potentially lose ‘M’ sales (?) However M could wait until the point when users register their equipment online, to make them aware of the forum. Dealers could likewise also be encouraged to mention the forum after they have finished installation – i.e. when the M sale has safely been concluded. Neither of these two strategies would cost anything, and for the new users could be a big positive.

For me the really big positive that came out of M’s presence at Huntingdon was that I feel much happier that M now have a more solid financial base. We all knew that they have openly been targeting CI's, who might well selling in droves to footballers etc. and for whom money is no object. Although that might not appear benefit mere mortal users like ourselves, it does have the potential to strengthen M’s longevity as a company, so that surely is a big plus. ‘M’s not inconsiderable investment in MQA could easily have killed the company.

I have been interested in all the discussion around boxes like the 218 that ‘could look better’. That box retails at £750. If you take away the dealers margin, shipping costs and VAT, you are perhaps looking an income to M of less than £450 per unit. Imho it would be financial suicide these days to be focused on making such boxes ‘look good’, probably paying extra tens of thousands of pounds that would have to be amortised over very small volume sales. Yesterday's M might well have spent that money without questioning it. But to-day's M under John B clearly attributes more importance to profitability and I for one think that is a good thing.

That's a great post, well said sir.

I heard that the case style is same form factor as HD621.

I hope the datasheet and of course the product itself are released soon.

Regards,
Carl

But in order to be profitable, one has to sell equipment. The above implies aesthetics are irrelevant to a consumer buying audio equipment. I don't believe that to be the case.

I'll reiterate that this matters not one jot if this product is for hidden installation only, it was in response to JB's comment that the 218 looked 'cool'.