Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Explorer and Direct(or) no longer in production

Good evening,

During my latest visit of Meridian's homepage I discovered with some astonishment that Explorer2 and Direct DACs have been taken out of the programme. Both can now exclusively been found on the support side under "Earlier Products".

This means that Meridian has waved a clear good bye to moderately priced gear. Their entry product is now the Prime.

I somehow find this course regrettable, but maybe the idea of attracting potential buyers for highly priced products by offering a moderately priced entry gear did not pay off.

Best regards
Buellerich

Effectively, the 218 has replaced the Director (and MS200).

I am sure the Explorer and other USB devices like the Audioquest Dragonfly place a huge burden on tech support for PC issues not directly related to the product itself.

Imagine a 200 dollar device taking an hour of tech support time while having to remotely fix PC issues related to the software player being used. Each time that happened any profit made by the manufacturer went up in smoke. It wouldn't take long for them to make the decision to scrap that product. I would bet that there are piles of warranty exchanged Explorer 2's.

I do not think that the 218 might be a replacement for either of the above mentioned units. It does not even have a USB input, so it is not designed for Computer Audio.

It has often been stated that Computer Audio has been on it's way out already. Maybe the hype is over, on the other hand I can still see a lot of companies, serving the market for DACs with a USB input.

I think the main reason is that Meridian has been at the leading edge in offering highly priced "all in one hand" streaming solutions. Why should they launch products, which cause inhouse competition for their highly regarded product suite?

Yes, offering products for Computer Audio entails some level of costumer support. But that applies to the Prime also and it also holds for a considerable amount of other companies, which are still in the market and -like Meridian- do not sell such products in enormously high amounts (Shiit, Benchmark, PSAudio......)