Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Meridian Event in Bristol

I finally got back home.

The only negative thing I can say about the whole trip was the Bristol Sound Show. It was exactly as the HH�ers suggested it would be.

However from every other aspect the trip was great.

My wife (and I when I joined her) had a most pleasant time touring Bristol and Bath.

My heartfelt thanks to Richard and all the guys at Sevenoaks. The Meridian display that they put on was brilliant where one could go up the ladder from the AC200/DSP3200 in increments to the 8k room. Whatever level you were interested in was on show. I was as impressed with the AC200/3200 system as my first listen to the F80. How did they get such a close approximation of the Meridian magic into such a small/entry level package? And having all the staff there that knew about Meridian was a real eye opener for me. A superb show.

The event was jokingly referred to as HH2.5 by one fellow HH�er, but for me it was a full blown HH3. I spent more time with Roland, Ben, and Paul than I was able to do at HH2. They answered ALL my questions and with genuine interest listened to my constructive feedback. I cannot think of any more that I could possibly have asked for. What an event!

I am having trouble putting all the HH�ers names to the handles to the faces, but I am making progress. It was a real treat discussing with my fellow fanatics without the limitations of trying to put things in writing and having a social event. I enjoyed watching the senior HH�ers playing with the systems and testing Roland�s expertise, although at times for all I knew they were seeing if it could make a cup of cappuccino. The only suggestion that I would make for the whole event is a group picture at the end to allow me to recall who I met and the names.

The thing that I learned that was the most significant for me at this time I will pass on to those less technically inclined as I. A music server is inherently much more difficult to get sound quality from than spinning a disc. The server is basically a computer where all the various functions are spewing noise. The Meridian solution is the MS600 or ID40. With these goodies the upstream Sooloos is doing the noisy computing, but only passing the raw packets of data (whatever they call that) downstream. Then in the anechoic MS600/ID40 the actual sound processing is done where the sound data is converted to PCM and whatever other magic Meridian does.

This suddenly explained my experience that I was hoping for an improvement in SQ with my C15 due to the apodizing and other improvements, but the noise made a net result of approximately even. If I want to improve the SQ of my discs in the G91 I have to look at the Meridian server system as a package with the Sooloos AND a MS600 or ID40. Darn the 8k room was almost my system except for the ID40 in the V6 and it blew me away.

In hindsight I was very naive in that I was hoping to get some answers and do some tweaking without spending any money. This happened greater than my hopes, but then I learned what I could do with a MS600 or ID40. That became a need for me and I have to do some hard thinking of the relative cost benefit of each � not whether to get one of them, but which one to get.

Aloha,