Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk

Thanks for all of the replies to far. Its quite interesting to see how much weight is put behind the speakers.

I'm a bit surprised that there weren't more Trifield solutions.

Speakers appear to be the most important item in a setup.

If I generalise and say that the following M floor standers can be graded as follows:


5000
5200
5500
7000
6000
7200
8000

Would the following statement hold true?

If starting with the 5Ks and a Squeezebox/Apple TV, the best upgrade from a sound perspective always be a speaker upgrade and that you should only consider moving away from the Sbox/ATV once you've hit the 8K point. (I realise that this is very contrived)

Cheers
Tom

If going for soundquality, yes speakers are the best investment. When you hit 8k's then you can worry about other stuff.

There was also another question regarding 3*DSP7.2k vs 2*DSP8k. Not a chance, sorry!

Hi Tom, why not have a look over on Dunc's site and find out

Regards,
Carl

You are welcome to audition my set up in my "typically UK sized living room". You might reconsider your statement as many others on this forum with similar situations have stated. The 8k's do not have a sweet spot for volume as many other speakers and sound brilliant in a wide volume and environment range. If you do a search you would find that this subject has been discussed at length.

Just my experience.

Aloha,

The 8Ks are like a fly-by-wire aircraft - if you turn off the electronic compensation in both situations the performance will deteriorate substantially. How would passive 8Ks sound?

Sound is radiated from both sounds of a moving loudspeaker speaker cone. I am not sure the physical methodology in controlling the back wave in the 8Ks is optimum. To some extent you can correct with DSP, but this increases the processing in the signal path, never an optimum condition. The rest is inevitable as colouration.

One of the best technical examples of back wave control is the B&W Nautilus.

OK, every system is a compromise, it depends where your priorities lie. The 8Ks could play in my room yes, as could a Ferrari travel at 5mph in a car park. It is however inefficient. The 8Ks can reproduce the power and scale of a grand piano - I'd never put a grand in my living room as acoustically the room is too small to cope with the energy. The 8Ks also could play powerfully in my room and sound simply awful very quickly.

My preference (and maybe only mine) is to by a system that is ideally suited to my listening environment. I neither need or want the capability of weight and scale of a grand piano - I have neighbours and healthy ear drums!

I also prefer to listen to a point source, which the Quads attempt to mimic quite effectively. Otherwise I'm rather fond of front loaded horns with very high efficiency drivers.

I'm sure there are people who wouldn't fancy my Mrs, but hey she rocks my world most effectively...

Dpaws a grand piano plays softly like no other.

You need to use your EARS rather than speculate; it's a fool's game you are playing here. And it's general consensus that you don't need to put brown paper bags over the DSP8Ks head units to get your world rocked most effectively, if you know what I mean

GMT you will be very well suited with a pair of 5Ks and an AppleTV! Always invest in speakers first. Always. And if that means you need to enjoy your 5Ks a bit longer then so be it. I prefer the 5Ks to the 5500s so the next big move for you, if I were your advisor, would be to get the 6Ks; in fact, I'd get them to start with as there are so many exceptional deals to be had right now, at least here in the States.

@B Mitchell - Thanks for the advice. I think you're right. I was surprised at the price of the US 6Ks that were being sold recently. (https://www.meridianunplugged.com/u...bb=showflat&Number=142451#Post142451)

I'm using 3x 5200s at moment with G68 and Squeezebox touch. So maybe the upgrade cost won't be to high!

@Carl - Thanks for the pointer!! I found the centre 6K on second look - it looks less space age then it's brothers!
http://www.Meridian-audio.info/viewphoto.php?compid=4&photoid=237

@DPAWS - I can see the logic behind your thoughts; do you have a feel for the ideal minimum sized room for 8Ks (do I need to move house?!)

Cheers
Tom

They would sound like my system which you are welcome to audition if you want to add experience to your conjecture. My wife found that the MRC added no discernable difference in our "typically UK sized living room". We must be missing the "substantial deterioration".

I don't even know where to begin to respond to the rest of your left field "justification" to your above premise.

Aloha,

Hi Tom,

There is indeed very clear logic in the premise, but unfortunately based on incomplete data and lack of actual experience. Do a search on this forum as the subject has been discussed in extensive detail by actual owners of 8Ks in various environments. I would humbly suggest considering this actual data rather than blind conjecture.

I recall my own silliness as I tried to convince anyone who would listen that the 8Ks would funtion better as full 4 ways rather than partial 3 1/2 ways, until I finally stopped with the crazy theoretical conjecture and listened to them.

Aloha,

With my 59 year old ears my hearing may have diminished but my sensitivity is way up. I feel the quality of the 861 v6 in my heart!