Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Am I CRAZY for wanting to go back to Meridian

I rolled the Blades back into the system because I was listening with a spectrum analyzer and the DSP8KSE was showing little to no output from 12KHz and as bass oriented as they already are I decided to put the blades in the listening spot and redo the set list.

The blades still sound tonally different, but my DB spectrum analyzer showed very similar results with basically flat response from 40Hz to 10KHz with a steep drop off after that! So 2 different speaker pair measure nearly identical yet sound fundamentally different.

My guess is the microphone in my iPad sucks and the don't really measure as close as my test showed. I think detail junkies might dismiss M DSP's because they offer a full bodied presentation, but it's all there at least with the SE upgrade all the detail and layers are there just not etched.

I’ve been having a lot of conversations about this sort of thing recently with a friend.

It’s been a long held view of mine that frequency response measurements don’t tell the whole story about how speakers (or electronics) actually sound. More is going on, what exactly I’m not sure, but I’ve found rather poor correlation between FR and perceived balance over the years.

:LOL. Indeed! It also has to do with damping, distortion; especially intermodulation as well as harmonic. Resolution of sub-signals not just the main one. Phase/time coherence. As well as how they couple to the room they are being played in, this includes positioning.

There is an awful lot of dependence on those air flapping motors to deliver the quality they do. This is not woo-woo as the Thiele-Small parameters, and anechoic chamber characteristics do define how a speaker will sound in any given room with about 90% confidence.

What most people hear however is not the speaker's but the room's response that is energised by the speakers.

I always thought that DSP in active speakers, Kii, D&D, obviously Meridian have a metric to control those parameters? I do prefer nearfield listening for the most part and i'm sure it's because less of the room is heard.

Completely agree.

I've been auditioning a lot of headphones lately also, where the room is not so much of a factor, and some ear-speakers (MySphere3, AKG K-1000), which are truly fascinating as a way of getting as direct a sound as possible, free from room influence. Sadly, both the ear-speakers have other flaws, which make judging what is contributing what difficult to judge, but one can definitely hear something going on with these, which isn't possible with speakers in the average room.

What of the now rather antique (at least on paper) MRC? Has anyone tried incorporating more recent, and well-reviewed, products such as Dirac within a Meridian eco-system? I feel this might be possible in a 2-channel setup, but more involved (to say the least) when attempting a multichannel setup (and I assume nigh-on impossible for synthesised multichannel from a 2-channel source, e.g. Trifield), but I would be interested to hear if anyone's tried and what the results were like...

Room correction aside, I still find Trifield far superior to plain stereo in my setup/room, and I wonder how much of this is due to a) mitigating room interference in various ways, b) offloading deep bass from the mains to a sub, freeing the drivers to work better/lower distortion within the remaining range, etc., etc. Fascinating subject.

By the way, I recently ready this (written by the guy who designed the J L Audio CR-1, among other things, as I understand it) about the correct way to actually implement subwoofers, and found it totally fascinating and useful, just thought others might be interested - All About Subs Whitepaper. Particularly found the part about phase, and needing more than just a simple +/- switch to do the job properly very useful, as is the part about ported mains/subs...

Indeed... I've been tempted by this one https://www.minidsp.com/products/streaming-hd-series/shd-studio

As a Roon user it wouldn't appear any different as a source / in use (although I'd use the volume control on the iPad I suppose). Last time I looked I couldn't find anyone actually stocking it in the UK to try out though, and TBH I have some stuff to try on the actual room itself first!

S

I bought my Trinnov as an indulgence because I had played around with Atmos using a Marantz SR7013 and I liked the results so wanted more and better. In fact, I have somewhat tired of Atmos as I notice sound (beyond 5.1 or7.1) much less when my mind is on watching a film than just listening to music.

The very pleasing and unexpected result of the Trinnov has been how much it has improved the sound (music) experience I get from my Meridian speakers compared with the 861v8 I was using previously. I was really surprised at how much better the Trinnov is for music.

I don't think (except briefly) about the wizardry that is going on to lift the lid, so to speak, on my listening room, and I know it is absolutely not for purists, but the effect takes me into performance spaces, aurally speaking, that I have not otherwise achieved at home.

I believe phase is everything when it comes to listening (we do have two ears after all) and the problem for most of us (who don't have our own concert hall) is the unrealistic size/timing (phase) of the reflections and absorptions our rooms inflict on us. Trinnov seem to have found a way to compensate, at least a little bit, for this and the inherent accuracy of Meridian's speakers respond well to the signals they receive.

With the emergent Marantz AV-10 being Dirac Live upgradeable, I’m looking forward to the much anticipated Dirac Spatial Room Correction update. The embedded video within the article is worth 45 minutes of your time.

This could be a real challenger to Trinnov Optimizer.

Re your thoughts on why using Trifield works for you - agree on both points, considering my own system. I’ve transitioned to PLII Music (with some tweaks of the width and taming of the levels of the rears) and it works well for me. I tend to now use Trifield for TV broadcasts.

That’s interesting you find the Trinnov better for music than the 861v8. I’ve heard good things about them (the room correction in particular) but not heard one (little point as way beyond my budget right now).

Agreed re: phase. Think it could be another aspect of why I find Trifield so pleasing, since it processes phase signals differently to straight stereo, iirc?

Also the subwoofer link I posted above goes into much detail on phase and its importance (and how allegedly almost everyone implements subs wrong in this regard) which I found very interesting.

Looks very interesting - nice to see a pre/pro from one of the major players, rather than amps built in. Analogue though, isn’t it - can’t see digital outputs?

[edit: would also be particularly interesting if they choose to allow Dirac Live Bass Control, which sounds awesome, but which almost no one is using yet…]