Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming To Sooloos or not to

I've compared an MC200 versus a MacMini / SSD / Pure Music / Halide Bridge ASync USB / Upsampling / Minimum Phase

The MC200 was via Speakerlink into an 861v6.......while the Mac Combo was via the ASync USB to SPDIF In on the 861v6

To my ears, I preferred the SPECIFIC above Mac Combo.......the differences were not large......but significant enough to reproducibly hear the differences

Each of the above Tweaks added something quite noticeable to the Mac Combo performance.......and it's important to note that I am NOT saying that a standard Mac sounds better than the MC200, because it certainly does not

Pure Music (with Memory Play and Hog Mode) made noticeable differences.....

But the two things that made the biggest differences were

a) Using the ASync USB Connection to reduce jitter to very low levels

b) Enabling Upsampling in Pure Music......which in turn halved the Output Jitter......(playing around with various Apodizing / Minimum Phase Filter options, also changed certain characteristics of the resultant sound)

The MC200 is a very good performer.....it's just that the above specific Mac Combination of Tweaks is also an exceptional performer

Having heard the MS600 in a separate system, I believe that would reverse the outcome..........with the MS600 enabling a noticeable improvement in performance of the MC200

Ronnie,

Have you compared the MC200 to the SB Touch in that system?

Ken

Do you power the Halide Bridge from Mac's USB or other power source i.e. linear PSU?

Avi

At the moment I'm looking at heresy with a separate stand-alone Vortexbox / Naim Superuniti , with a digital feed to my G61

Do you anticipate the same problems with track metadata as you get with Sooloos?

The Naim gear that has a front-panel display is clearly geared towards pop-music only, which leads me to suspect it will be just as problematic. I'm keen to hear comments either way on that.

I understand very little of the entire subject, but a lot of problems I read about in any system seem to relate to metadata. If I go the route I'm thinking about, then I guess that relates to more to the Vortexbox software doesn't it ? In any event, I listen to no classical at all, which is where many of the problems seem to lie.

Having read various threads/posts I run my mac mini with this setup (minus the SSD).

When the latest PureMusic offered the native integer mode I did try this but still prefer upsampling In PureMusic (the difference was lessened with the new apodizing firmware).

I am happy with the SQ but as I said was just tempted by the trade in offer.

My gut feeling was that the MC200 alone would not offer me that much more so I think I may just save the cash for future speaker upgrades and lower the price for the G98.

The Aurender unit looks like a nice piece of kit though (with a nice UI as well) but for the cost I could get an MC200 & MS600 !

Cheers

Justin

That's a misperception really. I have a lot of compilations, collections etc that have more than a single artist. It doesn't have to be classical to be affected by lack of suitable track metadata.

Having had an MC200, moved to a Mac system and back to MC200 +MS600, I would add

-I really like having Sooloos comms, i.e. on/volume controls/mute on ControlMac, handy.

-If you do end up with an MS600, you have a excellent second zone for listening, plus analogue outs which can be used with a headphone amp & headphones to give an additional way of listening (sounds excellent)(or analogue system). I say end up with but if it is an MC200 now, MS600 later maybe, these are additional benefits of the future upgrade.

-SpeakerLink (cat45 I mean) makes an audible improvement vs SPDIF with the MC200as a source. Again perhaps not much use now but again gives additional benefits for future upgrades (SpeakerLink speakers, 861vx, AC200). I believe an upgrade to SpeakerLink proper also yields a small gain.

(Small additional wrinkle on Mac mini music server, booting up in 64 bit kernel (which it doesn't necessarily automatically do) is considered by some to improv e SQ.) This can be tricky, depending on the model.


Cheers Tintin

Hi Tintin
I meant to PM you on this before now, but all Intel Core Duo and Upwards Mac's will DEFAULT to booting into a 64bit Kernel when using the Lion OS........this is different from Snow Leopard, as you know

I have verified this on a 2008 Macbook Pro.....a few 2009 Mac Mini's.....and obviously a few later machines

Thanks for that. Last I heard, integer support wasn't enabled on Lion because of a bug? I wasn't sure whether those that know best (over at Computeraudiophile) had migrated yet.

Cheers Martin

Great info. If I can get the same sound quality out of the mac mini and a H-bridge as the MC200, then I think this is the path for me.

How does it compare to the Meridian disk spinners?