Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Hardware with Roon Application Legacy Gear: That Stuff Under The Stairs

After writing my piece on "A plain English explanation of my journey to Roon”, here's something from the archives of "What to do with that stuff under the stairs."

Over the weekend, I removed the Meridian Control:15 (acquired new in 2013) from its original packing box to see if it still worked after several years in retirement.
Seeing it again reminded me of how elegant it is, and that it still looks great. Well done, Mother!

It booted up just fine, albeit laboriously. It’s incredible how quickly you can adapt your expectations to the lightning speed of a Roon Nucleus +. I turned it off and gave the case a closer inspection than I ever did when it was an operational part of my system. Being the tinkerer that I am, I wanted to figure out how best to get inside and take a look. Looking at the underside for the first time, I realized that there’s a door on the under-side held on by two screws. There are four additional screws in the door which seemed to be the right spacing for a 2 ½ drive.

I also read the Microsoft Windows license sticker. It’s for Windows Vista, not XP, as I’d always assumed. It bore the registration code. Note to self: I wonder whether it can be used to register a new install of Windows 10? That could be worth $100 or so.

Well, I’d already established that there was an easy way into the base of the C15, so I reached for my trusty Torx drivers, and a T10 had the door off faster than you could say “$6,000 Landfill”.

Inside was a Hitachi 500GB 2 ½ hard drive. Hitachi bought IBM’s drive business from IBM and subsequently sold it to Western Digital. I plugged the drive into a USB/SATA adapter, downloaded WD’s Lifeguard tool, and went rummaging to see find out the condition of the drive. All good; there were no bad sectors. I was pleased on the wear-and-tear front; for an HDD that was made in April 2011 and given five years of heavy use, it had served me well.

Poking around my parts bin, I found a Crucial 2TB SSD drive I remembered having recovered from an old PC someone left by the recycling bins that I’d cannibalized for parts. It’s testament to how wasteful we’ve become that someone will throw away a PC that had probably crashed and just thrown it away. Literally thrown: the PC’s case was damaged beyond repair, but there were cool and fairly current goodies inside.

I used Aomei BackUpper software to clone the mechanical Hitachi drive to the Crucial SSD, which took an hour or so because of the slowness of the HDD.

Armed with a cup of coffee, I put the Crucial SSD in the C15 and fired it up. All worked perfectly. It booted much more quickly, and it also reached out to Microsoft and did an update of some sort. I only saw the screen momentarily, but it was talking to MS.

Then I went through the menus, edited the registration information for my new address, and bang, I saw that “Storage” showed 500GB. “Bugger!” I’d forgotten to extend the partition on the SSD to the full 2TB. Luckily, that little trap door underneath the unit is so easy to get at that I had the drive plugged back into my PC again in no time. I used AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro to extend the partition, and within five or six minutes, “Bob’s your uncle!” I’d removed the drive, extended the partition, replaced it in the unit, and rebooted.

Another quick look at the “Information” screen confirmed that I now had a 2TB SSD-based Control:15. The question is, what will it do if it’s to be repurposed?

Well, it’s much faster. But the lack of a metadata service for Sooloos means you have to download album covers using Control:PC, and there’s more metadata checking to do. To test that ripping capabilities still worked, I added 14 CDs in honor of this site, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: The Complete Radio Series Boxed Set from my my small archive of CD memorabilia worth hanging onto. They all loaded fine, although subjectively, I don’t think it was faster than before. The old version of Windows and the 8-year-old CD ROM drive are probably bottlenecks.

If curating metadata is a labor of love for you and or you have the time, this is a good Input/Core/Store solution to get commendable digital audio.

But…

Having a lot of experience with Intel NUCs and having two on my network right now, my mind is hyperactively thinking about possibilities.

Lockdown in Chicago is going to last a bit longer yet, so a lockdown project is still on the cards. Poking around in the base of the C15 suggests there quite a bit of room in NUC terms. Would a NUC motherboard fit in there?

I’m keen to have a look at the installed motherboard (located behind the touch screen of the C15) to see what there’s room for if I took it out. I’m curious whether there are connections on the Touch screen that could be adapted to work with a Windows 10 i3 or i5 CPU equipped, fanless NUC motherboard. If that is viable, then the C15 has potential as an exquisite Roon Nucleus/Roon ROCK. This route would also liberate the 2TB storage limitation of legacy versions of Windows.

Is it worth it? Not for a sane person, but it sounds like a fun challenge for…

I’m curious to know before I open the rest of the case, whether there are any booby traps to be aware of before I start removing screws. Is there anyone out there who has had the back of the screen off and perhaps taken pictures of what’s in the case? Does anyone have advice for the best order of disassembly? I’d be grateful for cautionary advice. I may be bonkers, but I’m not foolish.

I hope I haven’t breached the rules of the site, but what I have now is a Control:15 with the original software and an-upgraded drive. I formatted the original Hitachi drive, so there is no Meridian secret sauce escaping from the box.

Also, if I decide to restore the system to the factory spec, I’d just delete the music and clone the SSD back to the Hitachi. Again, no escaped secret sauce.

If I turn it into a Roon ROCK, then I’d format the SSD as well. I can’t see Meridian being upset that I’d cannibalized the hardware rather than consign it to a recycling plant.

Many on this site have bemoaned the demise of Sooloos, and the costly hardware that had a relatively brief time in the sun. But I think we’d all do well to remember that the input, core, and storage hardware was a necessary phase to drive the speaker, streaming, and digital format (MQA/DVD Audio for movies) business, and the digital audio ethos. I can’t imagine that either Boothroyd or Stewart seriously thought they could “own” input, core, and storage unchallenged. But they needed it to make a market, which for their speakers and streaming hardware, they did. They did it also for every other supplier in the market today, which gives us the choices we have.

If Meridian hadn’t bought Sooloos one might wonder whether we’d see Roon move forward the way they have. For a time, they needed each other. And those of us that paid an arm and a leg for elegant, standard-setting digital audio equipment are co-investors in what the market has become.

The fact that I'm typing this in my home office with four functioning Roon endpoints at arms-length, each capable of driving separate speakers and rendering different music, is a source of wonder to me. What are they:

- Intel NUC8i7HVK
- MS Surface Pro
- iPad Air Gen 3
- iPhone 11Pro.

I’m still game to buy a pair of DSP8000SEs when I can justify the shekels. But for the foreseeable future, I want to feed my 818/7200.2s with Roon.

Hi Richard,

The Control:15 is fairly easy to disassemble... Need to take a few screws out to get the top and bottom screen covers off, be careful of the short wire to the on/off switch.

Next, there are six screws that attach the front metalwork that holds the screen and motherboard.

Be VERY careful when you finally extract the screen/motherboard unit - the wires are short and there are a lot of them... Take plenty of pictures and disconnect everything very carefully as connectors can easily break.

There are also some heatsink pads - make sure you don't damage them. The touch-screen is five-wire (not RS232 or USB) and the screen is a special connector, so using a different motherboard is a bit difficult.

Other fellow HH'rs have managed to get the motherboard to run Windows 10 but there are driver issues. If you search the forum, you should find some information.

Good luck with your endeavours.

Cheers,
Steve

Thank you Steve.

I think I'll open it up and have a look to get the lie of the land before I undertake any real work on it. Do no harm will be the rallying mantra.

I'm in the habit of taking pictures when I rummage. It's always good advice, and you can't emphasize it too often.

I'm intrigued to know how the screen can be connected to an alternate mother board. Whereh there's a will... Famous last words.

Richard

You may also want to look into the alternative of replacing the touchscreen as that might prove easier than hooking the existing interface up to a new motherboard. I have to admit those units look stunning and I nearly bought one when I originally went to purchase the 7200's.

Richard,

Good on you for getting in to the old hardware.

I’ve had a bit of a tinker in a similar way to you Tinkering with a C10 attempting to get it to run Roon.

And also here: Meridian Sooloos Control:10 Migration to Roon

I do have some other photos, but maybe not here with me in quarantine...

Cheers,
Jason.

Like you, I find the form factor of the C10/C15 very appealing and I have a plan to convert mine even to Roon. Using the existing motherboard one would need to get video on to Open GL 3+ in order to run Roon. There is a spare PCIe slot on the motherboard to put in a new video card of limited dimensions provided you use a right angle riser card BUT although I have both the riser and the video card I haven't tried it yet. I think it is unlikely there is enough space to get them in. So, more probably, I will put in a NUC motherboard (stripped of its case). There is plenty of room for that where the existing board is behind the screen. However, you will also need to squeeze in an HDMI to LDS adapter (not difficult to get) because the screen uses the basic LDS screen interface as its input whereas NUC is HDMI.

I didn't know the touch screen is not USB. I had to repair one of my touchscreens where its ribbon connector is on its left edge (iirc). From memory it just went to a socket labelled USB on the motherboard (not external USB form factor but the equivalent motherboard multi pin). I'll bet it is just USB but you might need to make an adapter to the ribbon connector on the touchscreen. Again , not too difficult

Keep in touch and I wish you every success as you could well save me a lot of time! Even in lockdown I have had so much to do that I haven't progressed my pipe dream.

But it is USB !

As per the picture and description on my website mentioned above, the touch screen connects
to a pin type USB connector on the motherboard (CN8 in the picture), and you have to install
the USB driver for the touch screen.

Cheers,
Jason.

Thanks Jason. Your memory is better than mine. I thought it was USB - but I was not confident as it is over a year ago that I was looking!

Longitude0, Jason, Koputai, and others,

Constructive insights. I love this crowd. So many tinkerers needing an outlet!

The more I think this through, the more I’m inclined to salvage the screen (or leave replacement for another subproject), and just dispense with the OEM motherboard altogether and deal with the connectivity and driver issues after installing an Intel i5 equipped NUC motherboard. Understanding the connectivity to the screen is what I want to have pretty much buttoned down before purchasing parts and commencing surgery. The other consideration is whether to go ROON ROCK or full Windows 10 PC.

The NUC/Windows approach seems to solve so many problems and provides so much more utility.
- An M.2. NVME SSD for the OS and programs (blisteringly fast).
- A second 2.5” SSD for data(with no size constraint).
- USB ports (for a Logitech wireless dongle et al.)
- WiFi (I’ll use an Intel AX200)

All this with the elegant esthetic of the C-15 chassis; hardly economically sound, but I think I can do this for over $5,000 less than I paid for the original C15!

Richard

While Roon ROCK is great for use on a NUC, it won’t be any good in the Control:15 as you’ll just have a black Roon Core screen, there’s no ‘Control’ functionality in ROCK. If that’s all you want, the existing hardware can do it, and run Roon Bridge for an output as well. I’ve done all of that already on the existing Control:10 hardware.


If you want control functionality, you’re pretty much stuck with Windows. The only other alternative is to get an Android o/s running on it, which seems to be fraught with dramas as far as I can see.

The existing hardware can run Windows, but can’t do OpenGL 3. A NUC can do OpenGL 3, but doesn’t have an LVDS output for the screen.

Solve either of those issues and you’re away!

Cheers,
Jason.

Jason,

You're quite right. I recovered from the brain-freeze that robbed me of reason and blinded me to the folly of a Roon/Rock conversion last night over a glass of 18 year old truth serum. I'm going to go Win10/64 on a NUC motherboard. Probably an i5, But I'm tempted to go i7 in case this project doesn't work and I want to be left with a motherboard with a lot of utility for an as yet undefined future project.

There's a raft of LVDS to HDMI/USB adapter boards out there and they're very cheap. I'm going to research those.

Richard

I think that’s the sanest way to go Richard.

I’ve been trying to stay with the original hardware so any solution would be easier for anyone who has a C10/C15.

To make the NUC/Windows conversion easier, you could change the touch screen, but 17” non-wide touch screens are very expensive.

Cheers,
Jason.