Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems 7.1 input on G Series

I believe I already mentioned this in 2 other threads before, so I will not go into details, but with a bit of creativity Meridian could have made 7.1 to work with the G68 and 861v4 (and probably the 568.2MM if they really wanted). Ofcourse it is more interesting to sell a shiny new v6 instead ...

Remember we are discussing a G68 here and not an 861v6 and Meridian have never been a company that produce products that "do everything" but what they do, they do extremely well.

Observations:
1) Dealer did not explain G68 specification in enough detail to client
2) Client did not research G68 in enough detail before purchase.

A double failure and now both parties have an unhappy deal.

Options:
Purchaser: Accepts that their expectations where not met in this area and "lives" with it ... or cuts a deal to get an 861v6.
Dealer: Offers a good deal on 861v6 to maintain good relations.

I don`t understand why Meridian is being rebuffed in this; the G68 is made to a spec, the spec is published and one purchases it for what it is; if one requires “more” then go for an 861v6, or go to a different marque.

Personaly, I think the G68SL should have 8 channel input and SpeakerLink input as well, but that's another story.

Regards,
Carl

Okay, I accept that the extreme high end will buy an 861v6, but a G61SL or G68SL+HD621 is still a lot of coin. I admit that it does meet the published spec, but I feel that the lack of 7.1 discrete digital input is the "dirty little secret". People coming to the marque don't look for it explicitly because every other current HDMI accepting processor in the world (correct me if I'm wrong) does accept 7.1 LPCM at a bare minimum. It's like explicitly asking if the processor allows you to set channel levels, you don't ask because it's a silly question; they all do. Except it doesn't.

Should Gary have checked that the spec included 7.1 discrete input? Perhaps. Am I surprised that he didn't? Not at all, I think it's a basic expected feature. A non-Meridian owner is unlikely to start reading the manuals of the products before purchase to check the minutiae of the products inner workings.



It would seem to me to be an obvious step to make cat5 the new standard interconnect between M components, thus providing a low jitter, 8 channel link that includes comms built in. There should be 4 MMHR inputs to allow multiple components to be able to input 7.1 high res digital. This would be in addition to a set of coax and digital inputs of course.

Then again, I thought it was a tremendously "brave" move to remove the coax digital outputs from the SL processors...

Don't get me wrong, I think their kit sounds very, very good (and I'm pretty low on the scale), but I think that they are their own worst enemy...

Dave

Hang on a sec. I think Michael said that you can *encode* a 360-degree planar soundfield in three channels (i.e. three channel UHJ). You still need at least four speakers to reproduce it. And then as you say you can encode a spherical soundfield in 4 channels, typically either UHJ or B-Format.

Two channel UHJ as used famously by Nimbus (and decoded in most M processors) is the same as the bottom two channels of the 3 and 4 track UHJ encodes: the 3rd channel makes the planar localisation precise, and the 4th channel makes the height localisation precise - so it is a modular and downwards compatible system system. (IIRC - it's been a while.)

It was a very elegant system. Playing acoustic soundfields using 5.1 is a bit of a cludge. What a shame...

(I'm just back from a Sokolov recital, if that means anything to anyone...)

+1 on that Dave.

Regards,
Carl

So Carl it is my fault because the G68 is published to a spec and I did not research it enough?

First let me tell you about spec's. I own an aerospace manufacuting company in Los Angeles, CA. On Monday we will be shipping a number items that are critical in a radar jamming system. Each of these parts has a price similar to the G68. Imagine the consequences if we don't meet or exceed specs. Next week we are shipping some critical brake components for a well know American airplane manufacturer. Gauranteed the specs and expectations of the customer will be met or exceeded.

I examined the specifications and my expectations were that the G68 had discrete 7.1 sound. I am sorry, my PhD is in mathematics, if I had studied electrical engineering maybe I would have figured it out.

I searched the web for a review of the current G68 and could not find one. Generally I look at reviews with a great deal of skepticism but they do point out obvious short comings as well as positive surprises. So I moved on to Meridian literature.

Let's take a look at the critical portions of the specifications listed in 3 documents on the Meridian web site. Specifically these documents are: Data Sheet, Technical specifications, and Users Manual.

Data Sheet: Sounds fast at 900MIPS. Sounds accurate at 48-bit precision. Their final sentence in the intro raises expectations "The G68 is thus an excellent surround controller for high-quality digital sources such as Blu-ray Disc". Inputs and Outputs (Data sheet continues) - "Equally, a full set of eight balanced analogue outputs (plus two additional unbalanced outputs)"

When I talked to a Meridian rep and proponent (not my dealer) after I discovered my discrete issue,he used this line to tell me I was wrong that the G68 had 8+2=10 channels. You see that degree in Math did help some.

Alright, I may be delusional but I think so far I think I'm winning this debate.

Moving on to inputs page 2 of Meridians data sheet. "on the input side, the G68 includes a dozen SPDIF digital inputs, six of which can be configured as up to two 6-channel inputs with Meridian SmartLink. There are also four Toslink optical inputs and eight stereo analogue inputs, ... All inputs are reconfigurable for an incredible degree of flexibility."

Wow "All inputs are reconfigurable for an incredible degree of flexibility." I'm thinking that maybe the 9.1 discrete that was desired by an earlier contributor is possible. But of course maybe this is where the degree in Electrical Engineering is needed. One last item on the data sheet under outline we have

OUTPUTS

8x analogue balance (XLR): Main L, Main R, Side L, Side R, Rear L, Rear R, Centre, Sub.

INPUTS

8x analogue stereo inputs, (phono).

If you go through the other documents on the Meridian web site you will discover similar language and nowhere a statement that says 7.1 is not achievable. Please look. I did and I came away with an expectation of 7.1 discrete.

Granted they never specifically say "thus providing xx channels of discrete sound" or whatever.

But 8 Channels or more was my expectation based on Meridians language, current state of the market and my personal experience. This processor is replacing an 8 year old Proceed AVP2 which had 8 discrete channels although I only used 6.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the forum, in American Jurisprudence we have the concept of the "reasonable man". Am I being unreasonable in my expectations?

Carl: IT WAS NOT MY FAULT.

Finally to my fellow contributors if my tone seemed "pedantic" it was intentional.

Gary. You'd win your case, without a shadow of doubt. Meridian engineering is, generally, world-class. Few other areas of the business are (including documentation and getting the feature set right).

Thanks.

In Meridians defense someone with a title of "Manager" from Meridian-America has contacted me to set up a phone conversation with someone with a title of "Director". So far Meridians response has been both timely and professional. Meridian has a world class reputation and from what I have seen from posts throughout this forum at least for the 861 users as well as many others they have earned their reputation.

Having said that, I hope the Director has thick skin.

Gary

Two by 6-Channel Inputs is a bit of a give away, especially if one reads Specs for a living

Of course, Meridian should have redesigned the G68 to take 8 channel Inputs as part of the recent changes

More importantly, your dealer should have understood what you were looking for and pointed you in the right direction

However, when it's your money, you also have to take some of the responsibility of making sure that a particular product will do what you want it to do

There is that, but when have we ever been able to reliably go by the spec sheets, particularly when Meridian has a habit of changing the specs? I think most of the fault lies with the dealer in this instance.

I thinks it's only a giveaway if you know that the 6 channel smartlink is how the HDMI box connects to pass audio, which for someone new to Meridian I don't think is obvious. Caveat emptor always applies but there's only so many questions one can ask. It's like asking if it comes with a remote.

I would love to hear the outcome of this

Dave