Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems To DSP8000 owners : if you had an infinite budget, would you upgrade....?

A lot of speakers (and different amps like McIntosh & Jeff Rowlands powering them) came and left me in the past few years.

From JM Lab Mezzo Utopia, Wilson 6 to 7, McIntosh XRT30s and Acapella Violons MkIV, somehow, Meridian DSP8ks gave me the best "overall" performance satisfaction. Of course, there are (and will be) costlier and better performance brands and models, but so far, the DSP8ks seem to hold my attention (except for the itch if I should go the speakerlink version from my 2+ year old model?).

Maybe it's due to the "one-brand" voicing but to me, today seem to be the best part of my hifi journey where each day, I come home from work, switch on the Sooloos and I am done and enjoy the music. The TT combo seem to be a "chore" (and even putting in a CD to the 808.3 too) when compared to ease of play of the Sooloos and the music coming out of the DSP8k seem just so right.

To me, it's the speaker to stay for a long time, and if there's a change, it'll be the "SpeakerLink" version (worth the extra monies??) or something entirely new down the road - from Meridian of course.

I would stay with my 8ks.

My previous system had 9 speakers, a stack of 4 boxes of amplifiers and enough cableing to wire a small village. If a component broke and had to be taken out for service it took me 2 days to figure out how to reinstall it.

I also chose a major change in lifestyle. After climbing up the American illusion of the material goods ladder, I found that I became more of a prisoner of my possessions than the pleasure that they gave me. I retired early, cut back my lifestyle, unloaded most of my possessions and am enjoying my life a lot more. There are two ways to be rich: have more or desire less.

The question of what is the best speaker has several components in addition to SQ. In terms of the total package of SQ, simplicity, convenience, wife factor and engineering conceptual excellence, the 8k rates #1 in my book.

Aloha,

+1

The amount of money that I have saved since retiring from the fast lane nearly six years ago is amazing. If I run short of money, I just sell off some of my posessions often purchased on a whim and hence mostly had no real worth. What I have left are the posessions that really meant something to me and I am none the worse off having moved them on as long as one piece of Meridian kit remains in my posession to make me appreciate what real music sounds like.

After I retired from the fast lane of high-end audio I have been selling off equipment for literally years! First the main speaker and amps and preamps and DACs and CD-drives and rack and finally the cables... I have been selling cables now for almost 3 years, power and signal and speaker and digital cables for a fortune. It has often amused me how easy it is to sell a cable for thousands of whatever currency you like. I sold my set of NBS cables (3xpower, 2xsignal and one set of speaker) on eBay in Germany for almost �9700 !!

Out of curiosity, what Percentage of their Original Value did they retain????

I'm guessing that it was higher than some of the Equipment itself???

Yes! The high-end audio cables retain there value better than most �real� equipment. One reason for this may be that the cable manufactures has made the marked believe that cables need to be used or �burned in� in order to sound the best. Then again the story behind this is in order to handle the disappointment that will accrue after trying you all new $$$$ cable you are let to believe that if you just wait (get use to the sound) the quality will improve over time and after a while you are no longer disappointed anymore (you forgot). In the second-hand marked used cables are actually better than new ones and therefore retain there �value�.