Originally Posted by Mr Meridian
Apodising works best the earlier it is deployed in the playback chain, therefore the source, or an HD621 is still the best place to have it, ie before entry to any 861.
Hi George
I have to admit that I have a slightly different interpretation of the above

I agree with the "earlier is better comment" and that is what I have always found with the legacy Upsampling as well, i.e. Upsampling in Source / Player >> Processor >> Speaker

However, for 2-channel sources (CD PLayer or Network Player) using a SPDIF out, then it would be best to input that directly into an 861v6 for Apodizing etc., i.e. not into an HD621, even if you have one

As we know, Meridian are anathema to HDMI and therefore disapprove of SPDIF to HDMI to avail of Apodizing in the HD621. Having said that, you may have seen a post on Friday about a comment on Friday from Meridian's Sales Director (I think) about putting a Sooloos SPDIF thru a VP to HDMI Out into a HD621 and that the results are very close to their 808.2i

Personally, I've tried 2-ch thru a DVDO VP to get HDMI into an HD621 and the sound is extremely good, i.e. better than an 800 Upsampling into an 861v4 (which has been my benchmark for several years now)

Where (I think) the "put the HD621's Apodizing in front of the 861v6" comes from is that for Bluray, the HD621 is necessary to avail of the Lossless Soundtracks. And because the HD621 has to be in the chain, then the "Deploy Apodizing as early as possible" advice comes into play

Personally, I'm still surprised by this advice (which comes from Audioimages, I've posed similar questions direct to Meridian and received different advice)

Meridian have always said that Apodizing sounds better the more MIPS you throw at it and therefore that the Apodizing implementation in the 808.2i was better than the HD621 due to this, but also due to more "Fine Tuning" during listening tests

As the Apodizing and Processing in 861v6 and 808.3 was a development of that in the 808.2, then I would have thought that the place to deploy Apodizing in a BD PLayer to HD621 to 861v6 would have been the 861v6

However, a case could be made that getting the 24/48 Streams from the BD Player into a 24/96 Stream will lead to less Interface Jitter and that this outweighs which component should do the APodizing

I certainly plan on turning Apodizing On and Off in the HD621 to see which option I prefer (obviously If and When I decide to get an 861v6)


Last edited by Ronnie; 2010-03-28 09:45.
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