Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems CD to test amps and sepakers?

I was hearing "The Eagles' Hotel California and when the drum start playing I could hear that my right speaker had more force in the bass that my left speaker. The same happen but in all the tracks of Nina Simone CD (Gold Definitive Collection Remastered Hits, Mercury 0602498325322) I swapped the cables from the G02 controller to the amplifiers 2x G57) and now the left speaker had a better bass than the right speaker!

In this sense the only explanation could be that my G57 amplifier that drives the left speaker is not working properly? As a reference, since brand new one the left blue LED in the amp was not quite bright, I asked to the my local dealer and he answered me that it was normal.

The amp driving the right speaker has more authority and force to the speaker in the LF drive. The amp force driving the left speaker is "weak" in the LF performance, I have not problem with the HF, it seems that mid and high frequencies are OK.

I do not know if this is an amplifier fault, but I have tried different music material (pop, orchestra, etc.)With some CD the problem is present and with other it is not!

The dealer came to listen my system and we did a series of test. Apparently the problems were in the CDs, he said that given that the B&W 802 speakers and the Meridian gear are quite transparent any failure or bad quality on the mixing, recording, etc. etc. (technical terms) of the tracks or CD will be quite easily identified in my system!

So, my question is if you can recommend me a CD or some music material to check if my amps, source and speakers are OK?

Any mono recording would be useful.

Did you explain to the dealer what you found when you swapped the cables between the pre and power amp? If so, how did he reconcile this with his "bad recording" explanation?

Mark S

I don't believe you can check your system through CD test - although there are many that can help you generically verify general operation.

You should contact someone that can perform a distortion test on your speakers to ensure that each driver is within tolerance. Also, your amp can be tested to ensure that it impedance is appropriate and matched to each channel. Lastly, they should be able to ensure pinpoint output level for each speaker.

Doug Locklin of Douglas Locklin Custom Audio Video (201-681-0714 - Douglas.Locklin@gmail.com) is HAA Level II certified and very capable of performing these tests and address any other calibration issues. He lives in NJ.

It wont be a CD fault on all your CD's
Hi Joses

I buy CD's mainly second hand from car boot sales, Charity shops etc and I have to say I have never had a bad one in the way you mention.

For you to have a bunch of faulty CD's is at odds good enough to win the Lottery!!!!

Try them in your Cinema set up and if they are OK there then they are OK, Now check your amps etc.

Cheers, Chris

Thanks to all! Yes I explained to the dealer my tests he did something similar aqnd came up with that explanation. I have listening since last week a number of different CDs and it seems the system is OK, particularly with Cecilia Bartolli' Opera Proihibita, Fleetwood Mac; Ruomors, last Javier Villazon' Recital, another Nina Simone CD and I have ahd no problem, so maybe the problem was a particular track in a CD and the Nina Simone CD!!!!

I will keep an "ear" on my futur listening!

Thanks

Jose

josescu,

very interested to hear more about the combination of G57 and B&W 802D. I have G91, G57 and B&W N804.

Prior to the G57 I had a Musical Fdelity A100 integrated 50W Class A amp driving the N804s, and was expecting to cure a bass-light issue with the G57. I was disappointed that the bass improvement with the (single) G57 was only small.

So now I've been thinking about moving to 802D's for the front speakers and using the N804s as rears. But given how much comment I've seen online about the drive requirements of larger B&W speakers, 3 ohm impedance at certain frequencies and recommendations of Classe, Chord or Rowland amps to drive them, I've been wondering if the G57s would be up to the task.

Do you get powerful/deep bass with disc material that calls for it with the bi-amped G57s? What is the difference vs a single G57? Are you yearning for an amp upgrade, or happy with the G57s.

Once you get into Chord/Classe/Rowland territory with 802Ds you begin to wonder if Meridian DSP7000s wouldn't be preferable - and dumping my existing G57. 2nd hand G57s are quite reasonable, though 7 of them would be needed to bi-amp three front speakers and single amp the rears in a 5.1 configuration.

Since I have yet to acquire a G68, picking a digital only output model vs a balanced analogue output model cannot be decided until the speaker/amp decision is made.

thanks
Sanjay

If this is just a 2 channel setup then there are many test CD's that will freq sweep the left and right speakers. Sterophile comes to mind but double check that it does sweep each channel seperately. The HT preamps have a sweep function not sure about Merdian 2 channel stuff though. I would put the two speaker snext to each other when do these sweeps to eliminate room issues. Or like you did, swap cables and see if the problem moves.

If this is multi channel, Dolby makes a good test DD DVD that I believe sweeps each speaker so you can tell how well the sub integrates with each speaker. Avia or Video Essential does too I think has each channel swept.

Hi Sanjay,

I am not an expert on sound or technical terms! But I will try to explain my experience so far with Meridian, B&W and Classe, Rotel equipment.

I am very much happy with my current system, could it be better? Sure it could be.!! How much and how? Well I would say that maybe 30% more with room acoustic treatment (around �1000?) and improvement in the power supply quality (�1000 for my HiFi system) and after that not more than 10% with more power in the amps.

Let me explain why. When I listened the 802Ds with Classe (CDP-100 CD Player, CP-500 Preamplifier, 2x CA--M400 Amps -400w/ch-(1 for each speaker 802D Bi-wired) and with Meridian (G08 CD player, G02 Controller and 2x G57 Amps -200w/ch(1 for each speaker 802D Bi-wired)I chose Meridian.

The reason is that I felt much more “liveliness”, more precision of the instruments, more resolution in the whole system. This is important because the Classe Amps have 200 watts more than the Meridian but in terms of sound, musicality, coherence, it is much better M. Then I tried the Meridian G57 amps in bridge mode and now I had 650w/ch at 8 ohms! They still were much better than Classe but, but they lost a bit of resolution and imaging. More bass (powerful) but not better (fast, deep).

After all that, I tried bi-amped. Now I can say that the best result was when I bi-amped my speakers with 2x Meridian G57 in normal mode (not bridged). This is my current set up. One channel to run LF and another channel to run HF in each speaker. Yes I`[ve got very clean, fast, deep bass.

200w/ch bi-ampying sounded much better that 650w/ch bi-wiring or 200 w/ch bi-wiring.

However, I wonder how would be teh effects of 2 additional Meridian G57 in bridge mode and bi-ampying to use 2 amps per speaker!!

Well, I supposed that the 800Ds would have much better bass that my 802D, but I think that with room acoustic treatment and better power supply will be cheaper and will give similar results, (all around �2.0K against �6 or 7K more for a pair of 800D!!).

I would say that in your upgrade from N804 you will notice a much better bass. Running a pair of 802D with 1x G57 is not the best given, as you say, the 3 ohms impedance. The amps will struggle so much, will heat and get so problems at high SPL. I appreciate that you will still gain a lot of bass with the 802D comparing to your current N804.

The bottom line is, I can live with Meridian 200w/ch per channel by-ampying a 802D speaker. This is a personal taste and opinion resulting of many months of tests in my particular room, however, I do not see many rooms different to mine!

Rgs

Jose

After reading this again (unless you have a typo in there). If you swapped cables at the G02 to the Amp and the good bass moved from right to left, that says Both amps and both speakers can deliver the more forceful bass. The issue is somewhere before the cables you swapped. So the suspected CD and getting a test CD is a good idea. I suspect there is Test Material you can download or check the Sterophile test CD's. You could even make one yourself with an old demo copy of cool edit.

Thanks George,

I have contacted Stereophile magazzine and they will send me test CD 1,2 and 3.

I let you know how it goes.

Rgs

jose

I use Sound check 2 , have a look
http://www.interstudio.co.uk/schk2a.htm

Josescu

Many thanks for your reply on your experiences - very interesting. I will have to look to obtain another G57 to try biamping my current speakers, not to mention capex planning for 802D's!

Sanjay