Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems 568/562V.2/596 config help (long)

Hi all,

I finally took delivery of my 568, 562V.2 and 596 last Thursday and now find myself in configuration hell. Hopefully some of you will be able to lead me to Meridian nirvana.

I'm currently not using the 562 (see below) and am just trying to get the 568/596 setup, things that have me confused:

1) I assume that the 596 is always considered "DVD" regardless of playing a movie or CD. However, the 568 setup gui lists this as "3C" under the comms settings, but the 596 osd menu shows it as "1C", which I think is a CD setting. Which is correct?

2) With the comms cables hooked up between th e 568/596, things seems mostly operational, except that the arrow keys of the remote do not control the cursor of a DVD movie's menu. Rather, the arrow keys are changing the DSP setting of the 568. As such, I cannot navigate a DVD's menu. I'm sure this was working at one point, so I don't know what I've done to muck it up.

3) The 568 can upsample the digital data from the 596 when playing CD's, right? I only ever seem to see 44k on the 568 display. I setup the 596 for MHR on, 96kHz enable and tried both bitstream and pcm. The 568 is setup to turn on HS Out for the DSP mode I'm in, stereo. Is there something I'm missing here?

4) When using the GUI config program, is it customary to have a unique "msf" file for each piece of equipment being configured? Or can one msf file contain the settings for both the 568 and 562V.2?

Which leads me into my 562 woes. When I first started working on configuring the 562V.2, things were working just fine, but quickly detoriated. Questions regarding the 562 are:

5) After I got through initial configurations and had the 568, 562 and 596 all daisy-chained with comms cables, the 568 and 562 responded correctly to the remote, but the 596 wouldn't respond to anything, including power-on or power-off. If I disconnected the comms cable from the 562, the 596 would respond. Note I have done the remote "clear" for selecting a controller numerous times. What setting could I have wrong to cause what appears to be a device/controller conflict on the comms bus?

6) I think in a state of confusion, I may have done a "store settings" to the 562 when I had a 568 msf file open, because at one point the gui would report trying to convert 568 settings when fetching the config from the 562. I'm now at the point that the 562 doesn't even talk to the config gui. I know the serial port is ok, becuase I can communicate with the 568, but when connected to the 562, the gui reports that it doesn't find anything on the com port. Have I completely munged the code in the 562?

If so, I assume this is going to mean a trip back to Meridian for the 562. Although, I think it'll need to go back anyway, due to a flaky connection on one of the analog output ports.

Thanks in advance to any help you can offer.

Regards,

Dan W.




[This message has been edited by Lerxst (edited 03-04-2001).]

lerxst - the 562 should not have to go anywhere. you should be able to do a hard-reset of the 562. check the manual to do a hard "type" of the unit (hold down up arrow and hit the power switch?). when you retype it should reset everything.

or if i'm misunderstanding and you did something like sent a 2.8 568 upgrade to a 562 then you're on your own!

also, i highly suggest setting it all up together ('tho if your 562 is fritzed then i grok). i bought my 562 after my 568 and it was a pain to redo a lot of stuff.

sab

Thanks, SAB, I hadn't thought to try and Type the 562, I'll give that a go later tonight.

And, no, I haven't tried to upload the new software, I figured I would try to get my feet wet with the current software first. Then, when I knew what I was doing, go for the software upgrade. As is obvious, I'm not there yet...

Dan W.

As far as the 596/568 things go, RTFM...

1) The "1C" in the 596's OSD menu is used for setting up each source if you are using the 596 as a controller, ie. if the 596 is managing all of the comms, and you select the CD source, the 596 will send comms messages with category 1C (ie. CD players). As you are using a 568, this should be controller and the Source Config options in 596 are irrelevant.

2) Set the '800 present' option in the PC config for 568- this sends normal arrow keys to the DVD player, and takes function-arrow keys into the 568 for presets, etc. If you don't set this, function-arrow keys should go to your 596.

3) The display on the 568 will tell you what signal is coming in on the wire, in this case 44k is correct. The 568 can upsample, putting out 88k, but seeing as this is an output, it is not listed on the 'input parameters' display.

4) Dunno.

5) In the 596 "Meridian setup", try setting Controller to "no". If that doesn't work, try contacting Meridian Service...

6) Dunno.


Hope this helps,

Simon.

On digital inputs where upsampling is taking place (high speed output = yes) the lower case "k" changes to an upper case "K".

For example, my CD input displays "PCM 44K" when I'm using upsampling and "PCM 44k" when I'm not.

Ronnie

[This message has been edited by RonnieBr (edited 03-05-2001).]

Hi all,

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

SAB: the type reset of the 562 took care of the majority of my issues. Thanks.

Simon: Yes, yes, I know, RTFM, I'm chastising myself harder than any of you ever will.. I was pretty frustrated at myself with the issues I was having and my patience/reading comprehension had run out. Now that I have regained some composure and things are pretty much back to working, I'll more calmly do a detailed reread of the manuals.

Regarding the function-arrow keys going to the 596, I thought I had tried that, but will double check again when I get home this evening. Thanks for the pointer.

As for the "1c" setting in the 596, all I can say is, Doh! I keep forgetting that the 596 can act as a controller! Even though I was doing the "clear" function to setup the 568 as controller and 562/596 as non-controllers, it didn't sink into me what the "source" setting of the 596 was telling me. Thanks.

Ronnie: Ah ha. I thought the display should change when upsampling, but I'd forgotten the upper/lower-case thing in my panic/confusion/frustration. Thanks.


Despite all of the troubles I've been having, I am most enjoying the new Meridian gear! I'm still waiting on the 558 to arrive, so am still using my B&K amp, but it sounds wonderful! The picture out of the 596, feeding my Pioneer 510 via component, looks stellar. Both CD's and DVD's sound incredible, lots of detail and nuance's that weren't ever resolved by my B&K AVP-1030 pre/pro.

I feel I may be approaching the gates to Meridian nirvana!

Thanks everyone,

Dan W.