Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Meridian is known for signal processing. But how about speaker technology?

You just cant say Meridian are not a speaker manufacturer as they clearly are.
Meridian Active and DSP speakers are a Philosophy.
Active or DSP Crossovers, Active cone damping Voice coil temp monitoring etc its all in there.
You should hear Bob talk about Speaker cabinet construction...(Many of you have)

Playing with cones is probably a bit like playing with speaker cables, all obsolete when you accept the Active DSP philosophy.

Chinese whispers down an analog musical chain. The result, however charming, is often far from accurate.

Cheers, Chris

I can't actually see what using a more expensive driver would bring to the table with Meridian speakers??

The reason we sometimes pay extra for a Morel driver over say the same size Vifa is to make it easier to build the cabinet with the sound we want.
Say you want a cabinet that is no more the 15" in height and no deeper than 10" you could only do that with XXXXX driver if you wanted to reach 45hz and keep it flat, or, you could EQ out the peaks and dips but that would actually cost you more.

Now, with Merdian building DSP speakers you can just EQ out those peaks and dips, which is what they do with the DSP33 over the M33, Obviously they try and get it as close to right to start off with, but having DSP'ing in their speakers makes driver choice a lot easier.

I agree. Now if Meridian teamed up with B&W with their tapered tube technology and diamond tweeters with hollow magnets, kevlar mids which minimise rear energy reflections and curved cabinets etc.

Actually the drivers used in Meridian's early actives weren't "off-the-shelf". All the Kef B110s for example, were high power versions with larger motors than those used in the LS3/5A or as midrange drivers in many other companies' high-end speaker designs of the time. On top of that, Meridian performed detailed measurements on each driver to make for perfect pair matching and retained this info so that if you smoked a driver, a matched replacement could be obtained. I guess the final point would be that at the time, Kef's raw drivers were considered aongst the very best available and used in many manufacturer's flagship and higher end speaker designs.

Insofar as the original discussion goes, the bass and mid drivers Meridian use, while not being edge of the art are still very high quality units. I have always wondered why Meridian hasn't went with a higher quality tweeter. After having previously owned various iterations of the Merlin VSMs which have always used Dynaudio's best Esotar tweeter, The tweeter used in all the DSPs seems a little lacking in comparison.

Happy Trails!
Vince@Freewheelcycle.com

ATC, who are in the 'hifi' business to some extent, but actually do most of their great work developing and manufacturing studio monitor systems.


Regards,
Roger

My point is about intellectual property, IP. Who owns the IP? No one does everything and everyone uses someone elses IP at some level. For example, it may not make sense for M to own LED IP because that is a highly specialized field and may be best left to others. In fact it may make sense for M to buy the entire optical drive for their sources. Does the same reasoning apply to speaker/driver technology?

I have heard the 8ks. They are very impressive and they are what M is known for. But they are not speakers. They are systems-in-a-box. On the other hand, the 300s series are speakers, which I own. There is nothing wrong with them. But would M have been able to establish their existing reputation of being the best of the best based on this one product line alone?

I am just saying that as an owner of their 300 speakers, I would like to see M make more invesments in them. You won't find me posting that M should invest more in DSP technology because I know they will.

Sorry Robert, but this is not true at all. I have the feeling I know what you want to say, but this way it is not correct.

I assume you want to point at compression drivers (SPL factor), which is nothing else than what you find in many horns used since the 50ties in home speakers, like from Klipsch (Klipsch Horn), etc. The exponential calculation might vary (frequencies pushed through vs. horn size. length, and shape) or driver details, but that's about it. We are not talking PA here, but studio reference monitors, usually 2 or 3 way with regular drivers.

An optimum driver is seeked by both worlds equally, consumer as well as pro-world. The driver must have in best case endless strength, the membrane should be endless stiff, endless light, the motor endless strong and fast, with endless way of travel, etc. Both worlds seek absolutly the same.

The "high end consumer" results just differ, as these speakers are spellbound to limits like passive x-over/external single amps and "sounding/philosophies" that are being sold. Marketing is there the main weapon of defense and unfortunately of irritation.

We try here to have a non technical discussion that can only be made on pure technical level. But we are blinded by the price tag on Meridian gear. We assume and expect high prices to equal best ingredients, where in reality it means best package, or highest intelligence applied. Making gold out of crap is still indeed not prohibited and if Meridian uses the cheapest drivers (which they don't), so what, as long at it sounds good in you ear, it's fine and already sufficient.

On the remark of distortion. There are many DSP speakers that will rival these numbers. To cut off driver distortion by limiting the bandwidth steep enough in the digital domain is not exclusive to Meridian. However, seldom speaker manufacturers, like in the 8000, build so many subwoofer drivers in one cabinett, hence low distortion in bass. However, instead of so many drivers, I would have prefered a cardioid approach and maybe a 2 way coaxial driver for high and mid range (point spource approach), but as I cannot afford the 8000 anyway, no need for anyone to care.

I just want to add that the woofers and tweeters in the DSP3100 at least are "custom" made to M's specifications, thats their statement! Don't want to redo all the great saying here. Just want to add that I felt in love with the M sound signature with their all analogue speakers. Meridian are the best speakers manufacters to my ears, old and cheap M20 bettered the Magnepan MG3.6+Jeff Rowland biggest amp to my taste (i.e more REAL)! Now only if someone could design an active and DSP integration for the big electrostatic speakers I would reconsider! Kidding moneywise it would be intolerable!

I am getting this wrong?

If I take a driver of a certain quality, and can guarantee a consistency of that quality so my results are consistent, and work with it over a number of years so I know it inside out, then apply DSP I've developed to correct any imperfections I don't want, then don't I counter the need for all-singing-and-dancing driver (as found in an exotic passive speaker)?

If the above (of course, simplified) argument is correct the Meridian would have a whole shed load of extra work to do if they changed drivers.

[Please excuse punctuation - influenced by beer...]

Cheers,

Ed.

Yes, mate, you got that wrong. Drivers are simple mechanical devices that are imperfect by design. You cannot just develop some DSP that will correct ! any ! imperfection that one (or Meridian) will not want. Some, unfortunately, will always be there. So DSPs will refine, but not cure ;-).

Go, have another one, cheers ;-)

I would love to mix on Dynaudio DSP speakers oh man, price keeps me away from that ultimately, I guess if I could make money with mixes that would be on top of list! But there's also great DAC and superb mid field and full studio monsters out there, untouchable for us mortal... I'm rather ecclectic in sound and am sure curious of what this clear sound from the North is made of.

On the active vs passive matter I guess people like the unit by unit upgrade path a little bit like old seperate hifi habits from the origin. But now that digital is the reality traditionalism is a negation of the present. Meridian can be proud to have pionneer the field! Sorry for the english folks french here.

At the end of the day, its what it sounds like to you that counts.

My Meridian speakers evoke emotion. I don't care whether they are made out of the spare parts bin or not. [I don't like Aston Martins any less just because they have switchgear from a Ford] Just that they sound good, look good and integrate well in the family environment.

Mr Stuart and his talented team do a good job in satisfying most of my needs. But on the audio side, thay have my absolute trust in getting it right - ten year old tweeters or not.