Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Looking for input on DSP6000 Purchase

Hello to the group. I was stress shopping earlier this week on Craigslist and ran across a pair of DSP6000s conveniently located within 15 minutes of my home. The seller told me they were his buddy's and were left behind when the friend moved cross country. He doesn't seem to be too savy about them and I don't believe they are used all that much as he has another system he prefers. They listed the sale price at $3500 US.

I was familiar with the Meridian name but little else. I have been deep into the forum attempting to educate myself. Here is what I know;

- Serial numbers 201002/201003 making them 18 bit
- No 24/96 stickers
- Remote present
- Missing top glass on both units
- One head unit shows damage from being smacked above the tweeter and some minor crackling of the finish at the tweeter. No apparent damage to the tweeter.

My other observation was the master was labelled as left and the slave as right which located the gold stripes to the outside, opposite the gold stripes on the head units. From what I have read, each speaker can be configured as master or slave. I just found it odd the stickers on the back locate the gold lines opposite the head units.

I don't have a means to test them other than basic listening. I didn't think to take any CD's along and the seller had nothing I was familiar with.

I am a little vague on the limitations of the 18 bit units. The seller had a CD player as a source. Could I stream an on-line service like Pandora, Spotify, or stream through Apple TV?
What happens when the units see a higher resolution signal?
Would you suggest they be re-capped right off? Tweeter replacement? I see a fair number of posts on those topics.
As far as value, from what I can determine, these units are worth maybe $1000-$1250?

If you read this far, thank you!
Any input is appreciated,
SF

The stripes are to the inside of head and bottom units. 96/24 won’t play so nothing will happen. You can Directly feed a digital source in PCM such as CD or a streamer. Your price seems to me is more than reasonable. Recapping will help the sound. Depending on who does the recap and what is needed, I think you would sell at a loss the next day given age, no HD audio, and cosmetics.

Hi, and welcome to the forum.

Judging by the serial numbers, they are definitely 18-bit speakers, and a little unloved by the sounds of it...

They will have the limitation of 18bit 48KHz max sampling rates but are still very good speakers (once serviced!) If you can negotiate a fair price with the seller, factoring in that their amplifier boards will need re-capping and maybe some other internal electronic works, then they will still sound fantastic. For the cosmetics, you'll need to find someone who can re-finish the heads (you would be looking at £150-£200 in the UK for each head), the glass tops are not essential but would probably cost £50 each to get the glass cut, holes drilled and appropriate tint and backing applied. The tweeters may also need replacement, allow another £130 each for them!

The gold stripes on the heads should match the gold band on the bass cabinets, it sounds like the heads may have been swapped over, very easy to swap back.

Hopefully, that will give you some indication of what you'd need to spend to make them great again. If you can get them cheap enough and you enjoy a 'project' then go for them!

If you send them a signal of a higher sampling rate, then all you will get is silence, although most streamers can be set to output at 48KHz max.

Good luck,

Steve

Way too much money given that they are 18 bit and have cosmetic issues. If you can get them at around a grand then they would be a great sounding speaker for the money.

Thank you all for your input. I plan to research local refurbishment costs before I make a decision. This set was listed for sale for a month before I ran across the ad and I don't think they are going anywhere soon. I best make sure I will love them as selling them, at any price, could be tough.
Off to cataract surgery so I won't be lifting much weight for awhile anyway.
Thanks again for the insight,
Scott

Welcome and you have some great advice from the members here. In order to get the most out of them, they will need a recap, and likely new tweeters. You probably read some of my posts on the other threads.

When restored, the DSP6000s are simply wonderful, stunning speakers, but it sounds like this pair will take some time, money and effort. I recently recapped my pair, and it is about $200 in parts assuming you are comfortable doing the soldering work yourself. It was also several hours including removing the panels, labeling wiring, removing old caps, carefully installing new ones, reassembling, etc.

Having said all of that, I am pretty sure that I have squeezed every ounce of performance improvement out of my set of over 20-year old speakers (24/96), and with the re-cap, new tweeters, a deep cleaning and polishing they sound amazing (and look pretty sharp). They image incredibly well, and I have been enjoying the first fold of MQA material from the 818v3 on them too. You can read some of the reviews of the speakers published at the time on Duncan's site linked above, and it's pretty remarkable how ahead of their time they were and how well they still hold up today.

You should have enough information here to have an informed conversation with the seller. Some people only look at the original retail price and ask outrageous (and completely detached from reality) asking prices for audio gear. A nice pair of 24/96 DSP6000s sold not too long ago on US eBay for $1000- I would point out that was an outlier though since it was local pick-up only. Someone got a deal.

Good luck,
John

Stateside I would say less than $1k tops. I would look for 96/24 units. They will play with the latest toys, Tidal, MQA At the 96Ks level. Shouldn’t be that much more expensive. I have a few used excess tweeters from when the black tweeters came out. Will be back in NC from Florida by Thanksgiving. I am listening through SE tweeters and wot ever need these. Check with me in 2 weeks if anything works out. Happy to send one or three.

I just went through this process myself. Re-capping is not too hard. Please let me know if I can answer any questions.

Russell

Thank you all for sharing your knowledge and generous offers to assist and provide repair parts. I contacted the seller today and made a sub $1k offer. We talked, he said he had an offer over $2k. I noticed he re-listed the ad and raised the asking price to $4k.
I did find another 18 bit set listed on consignment for $3,100 at a local store. They also listed a 24/96 DSP6000C for $2,400, if that interests anyone. I'll keep looking.
Best to all, Scott

Good luck in your search. Patience will likely result in a good find. I have been able to find a few sets over the past few years.

$1600 pair 6k 18bit (missing top glass) + 5.5k18biy(rough side panels) + 5kC18bit + D1500(beat to hell) (eBay N. Carolina) 2018

$1200 pair 6k 24/96(one cracked top glass) (craigslist Tulsa) 2019

$1600 pair 6k 24/96(excellent) (Audiogon San Diego) 2019

$1200 single 6KC 24/96(missing top glass) (TMR Colorado) 2019

The seller you are dealing with doesn't have any interested buyers, the other interested buyer he had is me. I talked to the same guy yesterday, David was his name.

He has no interest in selling his Meridian's for any less than $3500, much less sub $1000 ... he doesn't really know the market unfortunately. He believes that based on their original cost of $19K that at $3500 they were a steal.

I don't know much about the speakers other than what others here have noted, just wanted to let you know what I discovered after going back and forth. I am going to see about the Audiogon listing, $1600.00 is a great deal I imagine.