We have started a new topic to make this statement clearly visible but we have no intention of entering into dialogue.

Meridian is shocked and disappointed at the publication of a utility which threatens our customers, our support chain and our reputation at several levels.

WARNINGS
1) Loading modified firmware into any of our products immediately and permanently invalidates the warranty.
We strongly advise you not to load modified firmware into our products, especially if it is under warranty.
Certain modifications may only be fully restored by Meridian.
2)Modifying parts of the code without a genuine understanding of the consequences is foolhardy.
3)We particularly advise that you do not modify firmware on any item of the 800 Series or especially any of the loudspeakers or any Sooloos product.

DISCLAIMER
Merdidian will accept no responsibility for loss or consequential damage arising from running modified firmware.

Be aware, in this particular case, that transplanting sections of code from one product to another is extremely risky and can have unintended consequences.

Meridian has no intention of supporting or discussing claims or other supporting scenarios arising and particularly where power amplifiers or loudspeaker crossovers or drive units become degraded, damaged or destroyed in products manufactured by Meridian or 3rd-parties.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Firmware updates provided by Meridian convey legitimate users a license to run the firmware.

We do not grant permission for the owner to reverse engineer or decompile our code or other embedded IP.

Clearly the perpetrator of this so-called apodising firmware update is fully aware of this because the utility forces our customers to modify the code instead of distributing modified code. By this method the customer running the utility, violates our terms. However creating such a utility employs reverse-engineering which also violates our terms.

FALSE CLAIMS
The Wiki post asserts that Meridian's apodising filters are transplanted between products. This is incorrect.
Filter executable code is not being moved because IT CANNOT BE.

Each of our products and their (sometimes many) variants has different hardware design, DSP processors, clock structures, command and control interfaces and, crucially, different ways of interpreting, designing and implementing the signal processing and filters at run-time and within operating context.

Programs comprise executable code and data constants. Moving data from one product to another is like cutting and pasting Acts of a Shakespeare play and expecting everything to make elegant sense. A different analogy might be copying a Sine table to where a Log table is expected and then wonder why the run-time designs are wrong or unstable.

We certainly acknowledge that using this method can change the sound of the product, but never into something we would have approved.

COMMON SENSE
If it were this simple Meridian would have done it.
We have said several times that, where possible, we will release updates to older products and that remains our intention.
But we also pointed out several times that more advanced processing, such as that found in recent DSP speakers or 808.2/3 simply cannot run properly on those earlier platforms which did not have sufficient processing power or memory to successfully run the code.

When we prepare code for issue there is an intensive and extended QA process of automatic, manual and functional testing.
Final QA on a code release for a loudspeaker can take weeks and we know what to do!
Final QA on a surround processor can involve up to several hundred thousand automatic tests and takes even longer.

BRAND AND CUSTOMERS
We consider that loading modified firmware which changes the sound of our products to be very unfortunate and we are extremely disappointed that our carefully crafted sound will be impacted.

We want our customers to enjoy the fine balance we crafted into these music reproducers and encourage you to run genuine code.

UPDATE POLICY
By coincidence and as we reported at CES, Meridian was in the late stages of QA for a series of updates, significant improvements and bug fixes for more than a dozen products. This attack on our process will delay release while we change our update delivery mechanisms however we will try to minimise that extra delay.

Our over-riding concern is that our customers continue to enjoy the full benefits of Meridian product, including the ability to enjoy updates from time to time.

Please contact your dealer if you are interested in these future updates.

Bob Stuart
4 March 2011


Supplementary message from Meridian concerning Firmware - 5 March 2011

Inevitably some of you have misinterpreted our motives in yesterday's posting regarding firmware!
Whilst we certainly have IP and third-party concerns, our top consideration is to protect our customers.
To repeat:

"Our over-riding concern is that our customers continue to enjoy the full benefits of their Meridian product".

We are not building throw-away or short-lived CE devices. Rather we build carefully crafted music and movie playback devices intended to give a life-time of enjoyment.

Meridian's loudspeakers are built using the finest materials to provide the highest quality of sound and are referenced back to live sound. Our 'speakers have been proven to endure as fine instruments over 3 decades and our engineering efforts remain focussed on this ethos. We have a similar approach, within reason and wherever possible, with players and processors.

Because we are passionate about the sound quality of our products and we make continual improvements. Where it is feasible, it has been and remains our policy to provide those improvements which are deliverable in firmware to our customer base. Because we are enthusiasts this gives us as much pleasure as we believe customers take in receiving updates. Where improvements cannot be delivered in firmware we occasionally provide hardware updates but not when it offers poor value.

Our motivation in discouraging customers from installing modified firmware stems from this philosophy and from genuine concern that our users do not suffer unintended damage.

We are passionate that our products in the field should sound right.

We know that it is not possible to build safe or correct firmware images by copying sections of object code between products or even necessarily between firmware images for different versions of the same product. Some of you seem to think that we should have done this 'simple thing' without grasping two of the points made yesterday and which I am going to repeat:

"Each of our products and their (sometimes many) variants has different hardware design, DSP processors, clock structures, command and control interfaces and, crucially, different ways of interpreting, designing and implementing the signal processing and filters at run-time and within operating context." and,
"But we also pointed out several times that more advanced processing, such as that found in recent DSP speakers or 808.2/3 simply cannot run properly on those earlier platforms which did not have sufficient processing power or memory to successfully run the code."

What this is telling you is the dangers in this flawed approach. Let me try to explain one more time.

Meridian's systems are extremely sophisticated. Elements can't simply moved between code releases because processing which actually runs is dynamically assembled at run-time and depends on the hardware discovered, operating conditions, copy-protection rules, configuration and according to algorithms that differ between platforms. One can move the ingredients but since each product variant has its own recipe the wrong answer is guaranteed.

We accept that changing code in this way will always change the sound and that some may be (temporarily) confused into thinking that different = better.

Going beyond the sound, making changes to firmware risks actual damage. DSP code is powerful and can be tricky in that run-time may lead to content-dependent instabilities that may take hours or days to manifest unpleasant-sounding or destructive output. Had we been asked about this proposed modification we would certainly have advised accordingly.

To quote yesterday's statement again:

"We want our customers to enjoy the fine balance we crafted into these music reproducers and encourage you to run genuine code."

Let me illustrate this with four concrete examples.

1) Despite the warnings we have had posted on our website for over 10 years, we see some customers are now experimenting by fitting 800v4 firmware in 800v3. The hardware differences between these two simply mean that the code cannot run correctly. We are absolutely sure it will sound different for some sources but it will not be our design and in some circumstances the processing may time out, the controlling software will be looking for handles that do not exist in the cards and at minimum there will be ocassional clicks, pops and misbehaviour of the FIFO.
We aren't trying to warn you that the consequences are equivalent to meddling with the firmware in an aircraft, but several of you have touched on an automotive analogy and in these terms, the firmware files deal with steering, navigation and braking as well as engine management.

2) In some cases, updating the firmware is not necessarily reversible without having the flash changed in the factory and so experimenting with the 800 and 808 is not advised. This is why some firmware has never been released. Of course, conspiracy theories are usually more interesting than the truth!

3) Mixing generations or unapproved firmware will lead to content-dependent misalignment of surround systems.

4) In a different type of example, just yesterday our technical support teams and distributors were advised of products becoming disabled through loading this firmware.

That is exactly the kind of inconvenience we want our customers to avoid.

There also seems to be misunderstanding in my closing comments about update policy.

We have every intention of continuing to provide firmware updates where doing so gives significant or tangible improvements. Those of you with Sooloos systems see this happening also.

As mentioned at CES and Bristol, we are in the closing QA stages of an important update to bring a number of significant improvements and fixes to our loudspeakers and other products and details of these will be communicated in due course.

Yes, it is unfortunate, but we are obliged to re-engineer the update mechanism to protect our customers and partners from the consequences of modified firmware and this will cause a small delay.

In the meantime, if you need any support or advice please do contact your dealer. He is there to advise and help.

Bob Stuart
5 March 2011

Last edited by Duncs; 2011-03-05 04:34. Reason: Merged with todays post