Yes, Burumsan's post is confusing.

I think fiddling with the firmware is the digital equivalent of tweaking your analogue gear by fitting, say, a different PSU. I didn't hear any outraged messages from the factory about stopping supply of physical spare parts when various hardware tweaks were publicised on here.

However, it is perfectly reasonable for Meridian to say their warranty is invalidated by changing firmware just like it would be by a hardware change. It is, of course, a little more difficult to detect without special measures being taken.

"Push for development" IMO misunderstands the situation. Actual development implies adding new or better features and could be a chargeable option. The things which you list are just making advertised features work properly (bug fixes, if you like) and should be made available promptly and FOC. This is just like your example of NVida providing updates. Most of these are to iron out problems.

As for Meridian being paranoid, I don't think thay are. They were just taken by surprise by the apodising stuff for processors as they had never been faced with this before. They reacted in a knee jerk and wrong fashion. Apodising is an UPGRADE and they could have put their own out as a chargeable option.

Malcolm