Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Another DSP6000 vs. The World Thread

I keep trying to fight this Meridian addiction.. you know the deal.

So I have a pair of DSP5000v2's and a pair of M60v1's. Love them both. I use a DEQ2496 for room correction and also hot rodded the DEQ2496 analog section to feed the M60's. The new analog section really exposed the 5000's 2.5-way limitations in rough A/B resting with the 3-way M60, at least in my mind. The 5000’s are maybe a bit sweeter up top, but it’s damn close between the two with the M60/DEQ2496 sounding better to me. Then, a general upgrade to my home seating arrangement has triggered a general upgrade to my digital life. You know the deal.

Now I want a true 3-way DSP pair and I’m looking at the “big levers” in the Meridian legacy offerings:

DSP5500- 3-way reflex (ported) enclosure system; all forward firing (roughly point source) minus the port
Reflex 24dB/octave bass rolloff
Unclear if the chamber design has sealed mid-range. I would think so.

DSP6000- 3-way infinite baffle (sealed) enclosure; forward mid and tweeter, omni-directional bass

Unclear of chamber design but it’s sealed overall supposedly
Infinite baffle 12dB/octave bass rolloff
Maybe the two above lead to the sweet sounding reputation in many room types?

DSP7000- 4-way reflex (ported) enclosure system; all forward firing minus the port
Unclear if the chamber design has sealed mid-range. Probably?
Reflex 24dB/octave bass rolloff

It makes sense to me the 6000’s might be pretty forgiving regarding placement and room acoustics with the omni-directional bass setup and smooth roll off, where the reflex models have the rear ports to tinker with, but I don’t have any practicle experience.

I can’t find a DSP7000 around the SF bay at all. Same online. There are a number of 6000’s sitting online bit not too close and they are all overpriced considering they all have been there for a long time and there are a number of them. The 5500’s are available for reasonable prices and prices that are inline with my view of their value considering virtually all need to be recapped at this point. Both pairs of M60’s (one pair stolen) and the 5000’s had a number of failed caps and they all had the crispy resistors that needed to be addressed.

I like the 7000’s for aesthetics but kinda big.
The 6000’s are cool looking and I’ve liked sealed enclosures over the years. I’m unclear how the omni-directional driver arrangement will play with my long and rectangular room compared to my current setups, but I would think it would be a move enveloping sound which could be good in my room. Not sure.
The 5500’s are bigger than what I have, have the same look, yet same general technology and enclosure design as my M60/DEQ2496 combo which arguably sounds better than my 5000s. I feel the 5500’s would just be generally louder with more bass power.

Even with room correction, my big listing room has some dead spots and I’m not interested in room treatments for decorating reasons. If the 6000’s are more room forgiving, maybe I keep looking for a pair.

So, with all the hair splitting above, I’d like to know your advice and feedback. What say you, team Meridian?

I have owned 5000's 5500's and currently 6000's in a stereo setup used with Meridian room correction below 200Hz

the 5500's had a tendency to overhang in the bass and are a lot more sensitive to placement than the 6000's with regard to exciting room modes. The 6000's are a much tighter design in the bass and image way better IMHO.

The roll off in the bass that you quoted applies only to non active speakers and have to be rolled off much steeper in order to achieve the bass response that they do for such relatively small enclosures in an active design, as Scotty would say you canny change the laws of physics.

Rgds
Stuart

The DSP5500, 6000 and 7000 all share the same internal electronics, so sound differences are down to cabinets and firmware.

In my experience, the bass of the DSP5500s can be very difficult to control - if your room isn't sympathetic, then the bass can be overblown and over-powering.

The DSP6000s for me work in all the environments I've tried them in. In my house system, they are currently either side of a fireplace without a lot of room but still sound excellent.

A friend used to run DSP7000s and swore by them as he has a very strange room that seems to suck bass away. He's tried lots of different speakers (both DSP and passive) and has always come back to Meridian DSPs.
DSP6000s didn't work as well as the DSP7000s in his room.

If you can find a decent pair of DSP6000s they won't disappoint! Get them re-capped to allow them to really sing...

Good luck,

Steve

I found 5500 and 7000 to be much the same. They can be a bit difficult to tame.

The 6000 is a finer design but very different. The key to understand, especially in a long room, is the side-firing bass units.

Bass is NOT omni-directional. Positioning and toe-in does matter (a lot).

5500/700 will project bass forwards down the long room.

6000 will project bass side-wards and the amount of toe-in used will determine

a) where any modes (+ and -) will occur, and
b) just how much bass energy is projected down the long axis of the room.

Will zero toe-in you just have to walk from back to front of the room to experience how much of that energy stays at the front.

With increasing toe-in you can feel that energy moving further into the room as the wall reflections get angled away from directly at the wall.

This all affects the balance of the sound and the listening experience.

All that said, you can find the sweetspot and really let them sing.

+1 on what Nick says above.

Having owned the 6Ks, this advice is spot-on.

In my experience the 6Ks are easily the best of the speakers you mentioned, by quite some margin.

All these speakers are old now, so make sure you leave plenty of budget for getting them re-capped and new tweeters by someone who knows what they’re doing.

I’ve owned 6Ks twice, the first pair I let go, the second pair, which had re-cap and new tweeters frankly sounded and behaved completely different. Much more revealing, sweeter and subjectively tighter bass (likely new tweeters giving extra definition - better quality treble usually makes bass sound more detailed and textured).

Appreciate the feedback all! I was leaning towards the 6000's and I think your feedback has helped me come to the conclusion the 6000's are probably the best decision:

- Not too big physically
- Interesting enough looks
- Different cabinet design compared to reflex options will be interesting to experience
- Overall everyone really seems to enjoy them
- I have experience re-capping and addressing the resister issues in this vintage speakers (8 speakers and counting)

Now I need to find a serious seller - lots of "make me want to sell this" priced listings right now..

The sealed cabinet design lends itself to a naturally low group delay spread in the bass. EBA was Meridian's time alignment technology which was too DSP expensive to fit into the DSP6000s (I asked - they tried), but both the 6ks and 8ks start from a good place. And the 6ks do sound really tight. The most amazing thing about 6ks and 8ks (I'm lucky to have owned both) is the combination of power and delicacy.

Adding my two cents here.

Fully agree with all of the praise for the 6000s, and those would be my 1st pick among the choices you listed. Will also note that re-capping makes a big difference from my experience as well.

I haven't priced them in a while, but maybe you can look around on Craigslist or FB marketplace to see about getting a better price?

If you cannot find 6000s, the 5500s seem to be more readily available (and lower priced) and are fine speakers. I used a set of 5500s nearly every day for almost 10 years. As others noted, the bass is different and they are more tricky to place, but still excellent and a great value.

Good luck!

I have not heard 8k's ot 7k's in person but I do have a full LCR of 5k's, have a friend with a full LCR of 55's, and I have 6k's (see signature) in a setup. 6k's will change your life. There is a thing they do with sound that I haven't heard from any other speaker (again - I haven't heard 8k's) that not even other Meridians can do. As others have said - 6k's are the go-to out of your choices.
I will add that my 6k's benefited from toe-in and even tipping the heads down/forward (this is easy with the screw-feet thingies) made a huge difference in staging. There is a thread somewhere on here about that issue.

6Ks are speakers I would own again in a heartbeat if space and constant moving from rental to rental (across continents) were not an issue. If you have the room and all, they are a no-brained as far as I’m concerned.

If you can afford 8Ks, though, that’s a different matter. Truly amazing speakers.

8ks are big. 6ks are fairly mobile 8ks a fixture... 8ks image very large.

There are a pair of DSP6000's on AudiogoN presently for $1k. DSP6k's