Originally Posted by Georgie_Clo
Previous posts have correctly referenced the "loss" of DVD-A capability with the upgrade. Others (the other George's?) may comment further, but my own perception is that the gains offered by many DVD-A's have effectively been eclipsed with the 808.2 (presumably in major part, thru the apodising filters and enhanced processing in the newer model). My DVD-A collection is about to be sold on when I get around to it..... THAT is the magnitude of the difference.

George.
Having had the 808.2i on an extended home trial a while back, and comparing Redbook CD Replay on my 800 with the 808.2i, it is obvious that Apodizing represents a noticeable step forward when it comes to replaying 16/44 CD Discs. And I agree with Meridian when they say that it is now their best player for Redbook CD`s

However, in comparing CD`s played on the 808.2 with their TWO-CHANNEL 24/96 equivalents from DVD-A and DVD-V, I find that the High Res tracks still offer a superior music presentation than even the Apodized 16/44 tracks. (I have quite a number of (both old and newish) recordings on both Redbook and High Res 24/96 that I can use for comparison)

While Apodizing does a superlative job of manipulating the 1,411kbps bitrate from Redbook CD and presenting it in a very pleasing manner, I simply don`t think it can compete with the native bitrate of 4,608kbps from 2-ch 24/96 recordings. (FWIW, just compare those numbers to 128, 256 and 320kbps MP3!!!)

Having said this, I don`t think that Meridian would claim otherwise. Certainly their preference would have been for DVD-A to have become a major success as I know they believe that would have allowed them to offer even greater superiority and differentiation over their major rivals. Who else could offer the lower jitter MHR (non-HDMI) Digital Interface between Player and Processor and then take that still high-res Digital signal (with no Analogue losses etc.) all the way out to each of the speakers

Apodizing is a great advance for CD replay. But IMHO, High Res still rules the roost. Just hope that Bluray Music begins to take off

-