Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems 7200.2 recap?

Quick question,

Have tried to sell my 7200.2s and no takers. Would it be worth having them recapped instead of selling? Still sound great as little use. Reason for selling was to upgrade to 5200SE.

New in 2010 and upgraded in 2012 to .2.

Any thoughts or experience of a recap welcome.

Good morning,

I can remember first time l heard the SE with the new tweeter at a Meridian Road Show and it was the most significant improvement to the top end sound l have ever experienced. As the top end really “controls” the listening platform it is worth going for.

What was strange at the Road Show was the 52’s were a better listening experience than the 72’s and 8000.2’s which we felt was due to the small listening area where their bass was not able to “breathe”.

Best
Colin
Relham

Hi,

If the DSP7200.2s have had a hard life, they may benefit from recapping.

With the newer speakers, Meridian were already using quality capacitors (Nichicons), although all capacitors are affected by heat (both ambient and internally generated)

I've serviced newer speakers whose backs were left in full view of a sunny window, where the ambient heat had cooked their capacitors. If you want to investigate recapping, drop me a PM and we can see if it is necessary or will provide any sonic benefits.

I agree that the SE upgrades take the newer DSPs to a much higher SQ level and are worth pursuing if possible, but still think that the 7200.2s are a great speaker (giving a little more low-end than the 5200s).

Cheers,

Steve

Thank you for the information, definitely food for thought.

Your 7200.2 are great speakers (I used to own a pair) and may sound fresher after a re-cap. But it won’t make them sound like a 7200SE. I recall being shocked when I heard the 7200SE while I was used to the 7200.2 as my daily driver at how different they sounded.

Have you heard the 7200SE?

The 5200SE is, in my opinion, a sideways step from 7200.2 - what you gain in some areas (finesse in the upper-mids/treble in 5200SE, for example), you lose in others (bass authority, scale and effortlessness in the 7200.2).

When I was purchasing the 7200.2 it was a direct choice for me between them and 5200SE and I directly demoed both side by side fed with an 808.6. Having lived with 7200.2 and heard both speakers in SE guise, my opinion hasn’t changed.

It really depends which of a number of things you feel the most important to you in music reproduction. If you want all the benefits and none of the drawbacks of changing speakers, you would need to look at 7200SE.

The cheapest upgrade is changing the rubber surrounds of the mids. They stiffen / harden up as the years go by. If they are (a lot) stiffer than those of the woofers then changing the surrounds will improve things a lot.

I’ve done this upgrade on my old 5500's, the 7200's and 2 weeks ago on the SE upgraded 7200's. The difference is quite big. And the costs about 10 pound for the pair...

Before mounting the mids back in their enclosure, I had them play 24 hours with a sweep between 5 and 20 Hz to play in the new surrounds.

That's interesting, regarding the driver surrounds - do you have any part numbers/a write-up of how it's done? This might be useful for those with legacy DSPs.

I’ve been more than satisfied by the performance of my DSP5200SE’s partnered with my DSW.2 for stereo-only listening.

This is intriguing. Is it an easy operation to perform? How do you remove the old surrounds and how do you fix the new ones? And where do you buy the parts?

It sounds quite risky. Especially as I can’t even get the dust covers off the mid range units on mine.

Not only legacy believe me but I will do a write up later this week.

It's not very hard to do but it requires a little bit off patience and you being a little handy.

Thank you.

I’m intrigued by this.

Does this affect midrange/bass drivers on, e.g., DSP5000?

I own a pair of DSP8000’s from 2005 which were upgraded to SE’s 9 years ago, they sound great if not stunning, but one question, the PSU’s were never upgraded - its the originals from 2005. Would I benefit from getting new PSU’s or recap the existing ones, any opinions?
Also curious on this change of the surround on the mid-range? I think its the weak point on mine and I think they are out of stock.