Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Is this a valid test to see if my ears will hear benifits of Apodizing Upsample?

George, to address your original question in the thread title: No, I don't think it is a valid test.

Why? It's the memory thing again that Bob Stuart demonstrated at the AES in December 2008 and at HH2. Your brain already "knows" all the detail that is obtainable from the hi-res recording. When you downsample it and introduce pre- (and post-) ringing, you brain has difficulty recognizing that anything is missing - it interpolates from memory.

Going the other way, upsampling and apodizing 44/16, your brain will detect new detail that it hasn't heard before, which is noticable.

For me, hearing things for the first time in my existing CD collection is the only way of knowing that my system is better.

From almost the first moment I heard the 808.2 and 7200 combination it sounded special. The sense of scale, dynamics, clarity, clean bass and pure, extended treble were all apparent. Of course, not all this was doen to the 808.2: the 7200s played a part as well, including their bass alignment. But an extended listening trial at home over nearly three weeks only confirmed my impression that the 808.2 was doing something special.

Is the HD621 the fairest test of Meridian apodising? There seems to be general agreement that there are differences in ability between the G08.2, the HD621 and the 808.2, so not all apodising and upsampling are equal: hence the new 808.3.

And George's point that there is more than just apodising to the 808.2 is surely correct.

Now that explaination is a great one. Same argument I used with Ron on being to familiar with a tune in the MP3 test. It all depends on which direction.

That's why I (and Mrs L) have experienced the following in our 15+ years of her politely supporting my 'hobby'

>> play a well known CD on the target new item (speaker, player, whatever)

>> hear something you never heard before and go "Wow!!"...enjoy it immensely.

>> Go home and check the same CD on the existing kit and, guess what, hear that same thing you never heard before.

Why ? Probably as suggested above, once heard you can't un-hear. The brain knows it's there and fills in. It is then all about the ease by which we hear it and that's the big bit about ears/brain/perception/fatigue.

For me, it doesn't take anything away from enjoying the experience by understanding it a little better. It probably makes us a little wiser in the demo scenario.

George, get that demo organised asap !!!

When audio reviewers use phrases like "immediately stunned", "slap you in the face" and "mind blowing", I generally move on the the next article.

I 100% agree with Frank. It is just the other way around: great sound does not immediately stun you, it does certainly not slap you in the face (like regular CD does) and it definitely does not blow your mind. What it does you only realize after many hours of listening: you want to put on another piece of music and turn up the volume, no fatigue at all!

I agree to an extent as 99% of reviews tend to dish out the same old phrases. Just read any selection of 10 Russ Andrews products (admittedly a vendors words) to see the point in its most extreme.

However, we all interpret subjective words in our own way

e.g. "slap in the face" to me means that the change is not hard to find or identify. Just colourful language but the sentiment is probably valid.

"immediately stunned" is more about expectations < experience.

"mind blowing"....hecks know how we define what this means.

I know....all obvious comments.

Wow Nick, I'm gobsmacked by your stunning comments.

I'm reminded of my daughter's comment when asked by an aunt whether she liked the Christmas present she'd given her.

"Well, I quite like it" was the response...

What a well-trained girl!

George, I have 2 comments to feedback

1) About the test itself, here is one possible A/B test:

A: VIP722 HDMI -> HD621 coax -> G68
B: VIP722 optical -> G68

Switching between A and B inputs on your G68 does not (cannot) provide a single variable test because the test switches the HD621 and also switches connector types. So how do you know that the improvement is due to the HD621 and not the connector? For the B test, E/O and O/E convserations add jitter. For the A test, you eliminate those conversions so you eliminate the respective jitter. But you may falsely conclude the improvement was due to the HD621 when in fact the the improvement was due to eliminating optical jitter. Same reasoning applies even if the B test used coax.

2) regarding the bass. I don't make any claims about apodizing. But I do claim that the lower the frequency and longer the note (descriptive of bass), the more it is susceptible to degradation over lower frequency jitter (wander). A PLL may not do much for this level of jitter. But a deep FIFO certainly will. I think that the HD621 deep FIFO is the reason that the HD621 improves bass.

I totally agree. I stopped reading reviews after I switched over to Meridian 10 years ago.

I appreciate all the comments in this thread.

I'm convinced about the technology, and I'd buy an HD621 in a heartbeat if I knew the G68/861V4 would not get apodizing. But I'd kick myself in the butt if I bought it today and they came out with it tomorrow. I mostly want it for music, I don't care about improving movies all that much. And there is that complication of now getting SPDIF from Transporter into the HD621 which I'm willing to deal with but it would be a shame if I went to all that trouble and the firmware came out soon after.