Hi Jeff,

I don't use Meridian kit for music, only for my home cinema where I use Meridian 800, 861 (replaced now with TacT TCS2) and DSP5500s.

My music system is Mark Levinson Reference CD -> Apogee Big Ben -> TacT 2.2X room correction -> Apogee Big Ben -> Mark Levinson Reference DAC -> Mark Levinson Reference Pre-amp -> Mark Levinson 33.H amps.

The Meridian kit is great, if you use all-Meridian components because, as you note, you can eliminate jitter but only when using Meridian's proprietry encoding. If you want to use other digital kit, or Meridian kit, ie 800, with non-Meridian components, then jitter once again becomes an issue. The Big Ben addresses this and allows one to use any digital source and ensure that jitter is unmeasurable.

So, in this instance, if you wanted to put the modified SACD player's digital output into the digital inputs on the 861 it would benefit from having a Big Ben between the SACD player and the 861 to ensure jitter-free delivery.

Cheers,

Mark.

My Music : My Cinema