Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Meridian DSP Power Up vs 271 Settings

Like many people I have been reviewing my energy usage recently and based on my rough calculations it seems my speakers and sub may be costing as much as £300 per year whilst they sit in stand by. I've decided to switch them off when not in use but am currently unclear what settings are different when they power up from being switched off at mains vs coming on from standby via 271. The obvious difference at the moment is the volume is 65 when powering on from mains vs 87 from standby from 271. I know the 87 is coming from my 271 configuration but am unsure where the 65 comes from and whether or not any other settings are different (my instinct tells me there are more, but really don't know).

Just to add another dimension to this I want to switch on all my equipment using my home automation/ voice commands. In the short term this has cost me more money than I will save for a while as I have now replaced 6 double power sockets with LightwaveRF sockets so that the floor speakers and sub can be automated, but this part is fine. What is a challenge is at the moment I am switching on the speakers, then 271, then switching off 271 and on again to know that the DSP settings are correct (indicating by change in volume to 87). My 271 normally triggers the Trinnov to power up at the same time, but the extra off/ on for the 271 would then cause a change in power states for Trinnov which I do not want and so at present have been forced to disconnect trigger cable and power on/ off Trinnov manually.

Please can someone help me understand the differences in DSP settings and give me confidence that they are OK from power on when they start at 65 or what I need to check/ change to avoid problems. I am fine keeping DSPs at 65 if I know everything else is fine (i.e. same as it would be when 271 is powering then on).

I’m not sure you loose anything except the last used volume. But a simple volume up or down solves procent that.

I know that if I fiddle with Axis different than my saved settings I have to set that up after powerup of speakers but I think you will be fine really.

I don't know whether my 271 is faulty, but I have found that if I power up my speakers first (I routinely do not leave them in Standby) they just go into standby. If I then manually power up the 271 by pressing its power button, the DSPs go to 87 (as specified in the 271's configuration). If I use the Meridian IP control app to power on the 271 from standby (assuming it was in standby when the DSPs were powered on) the DSPs go to 65. As has been commented, a stab at the volume control and the DSPs leap to 87. If Rick of Audio Images is reading this then I think we could do with his omniscient comments.

Looking at your signature I can see a 218. Check out its config page. It’s probably the source of the mysterious 65 make it 87 to match. I have a similar config and had a similar problem. Make sure the 218 is set to not controller as well

The 271 and 218 would have to be configured differently. For instance, if the 218 was on a network input it is not likely that you would want to have a track start playing at 87 but you would want Theater sources setting the DSP speakers to 87. The best way to get this to work the way you prefer would be to have a control system initialize each source select to the appropriate volume setting. This eliminates diving for a volume control when a Roon track starts playing at 87.

Thank you for the responses so far but still seem to be missing a definitive answer.

If you have a home automation system then you would need to program it to power the speakers, delay a second, then power the 271 which then triggers the Trinnov.

After things have powered on issue a command to set the desired source and set the volume to 87.

I have found that with my setup that relying on the 271 to initialize the DSP speakers to 87 is not always reliable and can cause unwanted loud volumes when selecting the 218 for Roon and MQA. Having the automation system handle this based on source selection solves the issue.

I do have a 218 but it is not currently in my system (I thought it might be faulty) so thank you for your suggestion which I will bear in mind for the future. I am suspicious of my 271, but given that I seem not to be alone perhaps either we both have defective 271s or there is a firmware defect. The latter is more likely but, since repairing electronics at component level is my hobby, when I have time after Christmas (and Jury service in January) I will take the 271 out of its rack and check it over. It would not be the first piece of Meridian kit that I have had that needs attention. Unfortunately, I can’t fix modern software (it was 1967 when I last did any programming (Fortran!).