My mother always told me that if you can't say something nice then say nothing... I suspect for once she had a point.

In theory I am the perfect Meridian customer - I now earn well and I want to buy toys of the highest sonic quality at a fair but not extortionate price.

I was raised looking at the 200 series in glossy hi-fi mags and got my first bank loan to fund a 208/M2 set up which I cherished. I was hooked, they were MY brand.

I then invested in a G series set up with M33's which should have worked well - but failed on many counts. Hardware issues, software issues, frequency response etc etc. I sold the lot when Meridian withdrew the direct service support. Ed was wonderful compared with the 19yo spotty geek at the local store who could only recite the Meridian sales blurb verbatim.

So, off I went, firstly to valves, then to Weiss and Vitus and finally to NAD and Quad. Money isn't an issue, performance in my listening environment is. For every Meridian product I was able to find a competitor who was sonically superior and often financially more favourable.

I've just bought a Control 15 unit.. but thanks to the forum I've discovered there are potential sound quality issues that simply shouldn't be there on a Meridian branded product that costs nearly �5000.

Yes, �5000 - that's a shed load of cash!

It will be compared against a Slim Devices Transporter (2006 vintage) that's tablet controlled... isn't technology marvellous in the right hands!!

If Logitech can make this possible alongside kick ass budget Boom boxes and jog wheel colour screen remotes for next to nothing prices how can you justify the "prestige" of the Meridian price tag?

It's taken days of surfing to understand that the HP Touchpad app isn't a Sooloos system controller. The question I want answering from the marketing people at M is why not? I want the full Sooloos interface on a dogs dangly touchpad to control my system - why can't I buy that?

Why can't the multi-channel fans stream 5.1 content? Why can't Meridian match an Oppo disk player? Why were NAD the ones responsible for the M2 digital amp technology and not Meridian, one of the professed digital experts?

Why can't the 808.2 ultimate CD player owners upgrade to 808.3? Ultimate? Can you understand why customers are scared to invest when they get shafted and hung out to dry? A Control:10 upgrade to a Control 15 etc...

What exactly is everyone doing at HQ? Guys, justify your salaries - where on earth is the creative thinking? Even Sooloos, the first ground breaking component for years was invented by people outside of Meridian and bought in-house.

Build me a MS600 with a built in (NAS) RAID harddives with an embedded control program that I can operate remotely from a wireless touchpad with the full Sooloos "focus and swim" experience. �2500? �3000 tops?

Then again you may actually sell them to real customers, heaven forbid... I do appreciate that the general public are a pain to deal with whilst corporate clients offer higher profit margins and prestige but what I object to is taking our hard earned cash and failing to deliver.

Think domestic - lets have wireless DSP speakers and wireless components and banish the miles of Cat %/6 cabling for good (it is 2011 after all) we've got dual band N nowadays, is it really so complicated? Even poach a guy from Linksys and ask him to build a seven channel dedicated N band Meridian system wireless router! I'm sure I could even invent a green environmental reason to do it!

None of the above is even close to rocket science, it can all be built today and sold tomorrow. I'm sure if it wasn't for the huge technical knowledge of a few forum members then the Meridian brand would have gone tits up in the domestic market years ago.

Bah humbug... Time for a cuppa - feel better now - thanks Hitch hikers!!

Ahh yes, I'd forgot, time to don the flame proof coveralls and hard hat - but don't forget the risk assessment, I'm delicate you know... xxxx