Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Off Topic OT - Linn stops making CD players

For a record company linked so closely to a manufacturer I was amazed to see this level of compression in their music:

http://news.linn.co.uk/news/2009/08...e-24-bit-downloads-from-linn-records.php

They really should know better! For people who care (that should be all of you!) can I recommend:

www.turnmeup.org

www.dynamicrange.de

Bringing back the dynamic range alone would be a massive boost for CD.

Here Here en1omb..............

You think thats bad, wait till you see what Meridian are up to

When's the Meridian MP3 player being launched then?

Me too, Zander.

I had tabled a question at HH2 on whether Sooloos had the potential to match the 808.2 in sound quality (and if not, why not).

Unfortunately all Sooloos questions were veto'd on the day, but I would have loved to have heard Bob's take on this.

My opinion FWIW, is that there is probably no technical reason why Sooloos as a source should not match the 808.2, and indeed exceed it in sound quality in the future. The dilemma for M is how to manage the introduction of this at a price point which would make it attractive to potential purchasers, whilst maintaining the aura of exclusivity, and without wrecking their market in CD players in one fell swoop.

In other words, what was a perfectly innocent question on the technical potential of a system, was sidestepped on purely marketing grounds.

But, the fact is that whilst Sooloos lags behind the 808.2 in sound quality, it looks grossly overpriced. And assuming it will one day (hopefully soon) match or exceed the 808.2 in terms of sound quality, people like Zander and me are not going to buy another disk spinner.

Thoughts, Bob...?

I think there will always be people who want a Top Quality CD Player and can afford it despite the introduction of quality servers like Sooloos.
This is true of Turntables today.

People like the ceremony of putting on a Disc or Record. People like to own and Handle these things, we are just made that way.

At the price point of the 808.2 Meridian probably dont sell loads of them. Exclusive by default, as is Sooloos.

The fact that Linn say the sound of CD is Compromised says more about Linn than it does of CD itself.
If a Medium (CD) produces the desired Result even once, you have to stop blaming the medium and look for faults elsewhere because it can be done.

This is not to deny any of the advantages of Servers properly implimented.
They will be the future for the masses over time.

Just thoughts, Chris

I have just ripped some CD's. Whilst I did it I looked at several of the 'liner notes', some of which were a good read with background information about the artist, who played on the recording, lyrics etc. This, IMHO, is the only drawback with server based music, in fact we seem to be going backwards - LP covers were better than CD's for this. If a way can be found to include this level of detail on digital files I for one wouldn't be overly upset if CD's went the way of all flesh - assuming full quality downloads are generally available.

Linn had to change their strategy anyway. With the advent of computer based storage the 'rubbish in rubbish' out argument is no longer a good reason to pay a premium price for a source of recorded music - what happens on the way to our ears is. Whether by luck or judgement Meridians expertise in digital speakers & signal processing puts them in a good position in this 'new(ish) world'. For example I have just spent over �3.5k on a processor & 4 speakers (all 2nd hand). The sources (airtunes & an 2nd hand Oppo) cost less than �200. That ratio of expenditure would have been considered lunacy 20 years ago, but I am very happy with the results, even though I am sure it would sound a little shabby compared to some of the systems owned by the people on here.

My suspicion is that the market for ultra expensive front ends will shrink dramatically as relatively low cost units become increasingly capable of delivering sophisticated, bit-perfect information. The value will lie in how this information is processed & delivered to our ears/ eyes.

Certainly an interesting volte face from the early years of Linn. I seem to remember some comedian saying that if you fed the output from a Sondek through a transistor radio it would sound better than a CD through a decent system.

We have gone from "the source is key" to "all sources are the same".

Perhaps not coincidently we have gone from analog source to digital source.

At the risk of oversimplifying what I have learned from all my questions on quality of servers vs 802.2, it seems that all the reading of the sources on any digital format is indeed the same, the magic comes in the processing after. It seems this Meridian magic processing used to be in the spinners, but the indication seems to be that this is going to progress to the processors or HD621's or other boxes downstream. To a layman like me it seems so logical and I hope that it happerns. To be able to feed my Sonos or Sooloos and Oppo or whatever into my Meridian processor with whatever additional boxes Bob wants me to buy to get 808.2 quality.

So maybe Lynn is just catching up to the secret master plan that Meridian has been carefully and discreetly working to?

I have so little time for Linn... Still living off of the brand equity of the LP12. The expense of Meridian without the quality, IMO. Bob was on the mark when he said that he didn't consider Linn to be a serious competitor!

My own opinion is that whilst Bob is an engineer, Ivor is a marketer, nothing more, nothing less.

Cheers

George

And up until recently, I guess that Linn has been a much more successful *business* than Meridian.