Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems how much better are the new hd formats?

Hi

I am in a real quandry at the moment.
I love my M gear but without the new HDMI M widget which will cos another chunk of cash - which has to be justified to her who must say yes! - i cant access true hd et al

Can anyone give me their own personal experiences of this please as simply outputting the analogue from my bd player to an amp cant really give me the sonic experience of a proper set up can it?? or the simple integra 9.9 HDMI all in one seemingly simple solution - no pedigree i know but it makes you think?

thanks all
mr confused

I think all these new HD formats are bluffing in terms of the real world significance. I've heard both and to be honest I don't find the old formats lacking when you're actually watching a movie. It's certainly nothing on par with the difference between a 1080p movie and a 720p one.

At least that is what I will keep telling myself whilst i am out of pocket for the HD621!

howie

Based on what you are hearing at the moment, how much better do you really want it to be? How much better do you think it actually can be? How much better will your enjoyment of the movie be? I have both HD formats, and the sound over plain coax is awesome. $3k to add HDMI for a handful of movies is just plain stupid in my world. It already sounds amazing. I don't see the logic in the price. If it was $1k, and with theoretically improved tech, maybe I'd be interested... And to add insult to injury, just look at the price of existing HDMI switchers. Yikes! Meridian needs to treat us better than that.

Why do you say a hand full of movies. I think every movie I have rented since adding Clux has had a lossless codec. Sure some might have more gain than others. But think it's way more than a hand full of movies.

If you think Meridian was gonna sell this for $1K you're dreaming and in the wrong hobby. I'm actually amazed they are selling it this cheap.

Meridian is not competing with Monoprice/Yamaha/Denon/Oppo if you don't like Meridian's price/performance then look elsewhere.

MF:

You are certainly entitled to your opinion.

Me? I don't own Meridian to use lossy codecs when lossless ones are possible.

Nisnos
The consensus of the people on here who have access to the Lossless Codecs are that they are definitely worth having

Obviously, some Movies show more Differentiation on Lossless versus Lossy than other movies, but that for almost all movies that Lossless is a positive benefit (not exactly surprising)

A Modified Clux ($400); a Modified Octava ($600) or the Meridian HD621 (�1,495) are the 3 choices for getting the Lossless Soundtracks into your Meridian Processor

The first 2 options give you what you want for a lot less than an Integra or similar. AND, you still get to use the superior Processing etc available from the Meridian unit

The Meridian HD621 will offer a few incremental benefits over the Modified Clux and Octava units, which some / many people may be prepared to pay for

SUMMARY: Lossless is worth having and you can get it while continuing to use your existing Meridian kit

If you have a Meridian with multi-channel analogue in and a player with good analogue out then the HD621 is probably hard to justify for you. TrueHD/Master Audio digital should be compared to this, not compared to lossy codecs.

The big problem is that players that decode all the HQ formats and send them through high quality DAC's are both scarce and expensive, if even a good-enough one exist...

'If you have a Meridian with multi-channel analogue in and a player with good analogue out then the HD621 is probably hard to justify for you. TrueHD/Master Audio digital should be compared to this, not compared to lossy codecs.'

So just how much better is the digital approach to multi-analogue input? A lot of discussion is currently taking place re Clux/optima digital mods. when both give multi channel analogue outputs? My system could consist of a Sony BS350 Bluray feeding a (clux) with analogue outputs to a G68ADV feeding 3x DSP 5200's front and 3100's rears. If the clux was converted to digital how much improvement over analogue is there likely to be but more importantly how much better would the analogue clux be over my present digital bitstream output from the sony?

These are the real questions for me because as I have said before nearly �1500 for a singular, not used too frequently, purpose is not cost justifyable and I suspect is not for a lot of others too. How different it would be if Sky had proper audio output!!!

Rod

I don't know if the original CLUX/Octava analogue output is any better than from the typical BD player, but I haven't test listened any of them.

Yeah, I don't disagree about the discs having a lossless track. For me, I'm extremely pleased with the way that my films sound and look right now. Regular DVD on my Elite looks superb, and for that reason alone there are only a small selection of films I'll be upgrading to HD. For those HD discs I do have, there are only a handful I care to hear in HD - The Dark Knight (Yes), Dune (No). I would imagine that my preference would be to hear HD in more action oriented films that were recorded in recent times. So when I boil it all down, it's not about availability but what I'd be inclined to buy/repurchase due to better sound.


That might have been the case 10 years ago when Meridian could claim a world a performance difference against "low-fi" companies. These days, like it or not, Meridian is competing with Monoprice/Yamaha/Denon/Oppo/Apple/Sonos/Clux/Octava. I have no problem buying cheap products that provide high-end performance. For me, Meridian needs to justify the investment in the HD621 in the same way that it justified the purchase of my G68. My perception is that what I gain from adding the HD621 to my system is not even fractionally compared to what I gained from adding the G68.



My requirements for music are different than my needs for film. I want my films to sound amazing, and they already do. I'm more engaged in what is on the screen than what is coming out of my speakers, especially for non-action movies. Having the lossless codecs is a nice to have, even at the price of the mods. It simply isn't a must have for my enjoyment. Let's be honest, this isn't a pro-logic to DD/DTS performance jump we are getting here.

My experience is that the 5ch analog in on the G68 is grossly inferior to Coax. Maybe it was the poor output of the player, but I think that you'd have to pay dearly to get a HD player that did reference quality analog out.

Unless you have considerable DIY skills the first two options are no longer available.