Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming MC200 Performance over Analogue

Hi Chris, 96k into the M/F80 is fine.

Optical into my M80 is better than analogue. You'll need an SPDIF to optical converter.

Are the cheapish ones any good, or do I need Somthing more refined?
Thanks, Chris

�10 from Amazon is a pretty safe bet.

I just bought one of the �10 optical to co-ax converters from Amazon and I have to say the build quality is rubbish. The RCA connector became dislodged just pushing a phono plug in and it took switching on and off twice to get it functioning.

Has anyone tried to power one of these from the MC200 USB port? If so, are ready made leads available or is it a custom job?

Never mind analog performance, I just received my coax to opt converter (�8.00) and so rigged up the F80 with 96 kHz from the MC200 for the first time in my main room. SWMBO asked why we needed all the "other stuff"? I am begining to wonder why myself, it was a good question.
It is simply remarkable that such a good wide sound can come from such a small box.

Shame the F80 doesn't have an SLS Monica, or should it be MDMS? Jukebox perhaps would suffice.
Blown away, Chris

Back on topic I got to test my MC200 out semi properly for the first time today.

I am still waiting on my amp to be returned, but I could not wait any longer. I took the MC200 round to my cousins to hear it - his system is similar to mine and we did direct comparison to music streamed from his PC.

Now my first impressions grew as the MC200 was on longer - the mid-range and treble is extremely clean and presented really nicely. The soundstage is good - nicely layered front to back, quite wide as well.

The bass would be the only area that's not quite up to the rest of it - it's not bad, just not that full on / always controlled.

In comparison to streaming from my cousins PC - using J River software and an upgraded (improved opamps) Asus Essence STX soundcard - the STX definitely had better bass than the MC200 - very tuneful and knitted very well with the rest of it, however the mid-range / treble was not as good. He is using cheap 3m interconnects and they do murder the sound so it wasn't a fair test.

I tried importing a couple of WAV albums to see if there the difference in sound was in the file format (cousin running wavs from his PC) - straight away the bass seemed more controlled with more weight - However at the end of majority of the tracks there is a second of pink noise obviously an error - it's actually mentioned in the HiFi-advice review someone linked to earlier in the thread. I also didn't do like for like so it could have just been the different songs / albums I tried that had better bass anyways - however it's interesting to note.

It's also worth noting that he is ripping using a Plextor drive - I am using a Pioneer, I wonder of the pioneer drive is not particularly great as I have heard a few errors in songs here and there?

I really enjoyed listening to the MC200 today, you can just keep listening and listening - really stunning sound and I am gutted that I am still waiting for my amp back to try it on my own system - its absolute torture!!

I got to use the new iPad App - while it's good, I think there is big room for improvement still. If you get a chance to run the J River iPad App you can see what I mean - it's faster, cleaner etc. - however, I still have a very positive opinion of the Meridian App.

Re drive for ripping, as has been covered here quite a few times, if you use dBpoweramp with Accurate rip then that makes which ripping hardware you use irrelevant so far as SQ is concerned (although, of course, a poor drive could take much longer to actually do the rip).

WAV vs Flac investigation would indicate that if there was indeed a difference (not due to file difference but how audio device behaves in an environment caused by differences of high disc|net IO/negligible CPU vs low disc|net IO/slightly less negligible CPU), any differences could be avoided by using a remote audio endpoint such as ID40/MS600 etc or possibly even an external DAC/DSP.

Hi Ian,

That's an interesting read, thanks for posting it.

Regards,
Carl