Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Modified SACD Player??

Thanks John

This digital technology is changing so fast, one sometime feels stupid wasting money trying to keep up. And they refuse to cooperate so we have blu-ray with its rival on the horizon, .... Bahhhh!!

John

I now have one of the DVDupgrades.ch players - it arrived yesterday.

So far it has performed flawlessly, delivering digital DVD-A up to 192kHz and SACD converted to 88.2 PCM.

My main system is out of action so I've been unable to do any real critical listening, but on my 2nd system everything is going well.

My player is connected to an Apogee Big Ben master clock which recklocks the digital output, up to 192kHz, to ensure there is no jitter.

Can't wait to get my main system working again so that I can put this player through some more rigourous tests.

Mark.

MArk,
Interesting, keep us posted please. Im am still interested. However no with my current SACD player, and certainly no pioneer player.

Jaco

Mark,

Can you explain how the Apogee Big Ben is cabled in the system?

Odyssey,

The player is connected to the Big Ben's SPDIF input... I only use 2-channel at present. For multi-channel I guess you would need multiple Big Bens!

Mark

Jaco,

Any reason why not the Pioneer player given that I will only use it for audio discs?

Mark

Mark,
Owned 2 pioneer players (717 and 747) Was not that impressed of the sound compared with my Meridian.
So if i go for another SACD, it would likely be a audio only Sony or Marantz.
For this mod you would only need good drive unit, no fancy analogue output stages.
So there are not many options.
Might try my current Sony. Perhaps the drive in that cheaper unit is not much different from the top units, only the electronics are ?

Jaco

Jaco,

FWIW, when I first started using the Apogee Big Ben I compared a number of cheap transports (<$1000) againt my Mark Levinson Reference CD Transport (~$15,000) and Meridian 800 (~$15,000). With the Big Ben in the chain every transport sounded 99% as good as the Mark Levinson/Meridian (others have reported similar results against other high-end transports). The Big Ben bridged the gap that had previously existed. I no longer believe there is any point in spending money on high end transports when the same can be achieved for so much less (ie a cheap transport and the $1300 Big Ben).

So, as long as the Pioneer's only job in this instance is sending out the digital stream, and the Apogee Big Ben is there to reclock it, I am totally happy :-)

Cheers,

Mark

Hi Mark,

I'm trying to fully understand your discussion here regarding the Big Ben, and I'm pretty sure I'm understanding.

Just one question: What are you using for your sound processor? The Meridian 861 or the Meridian G68, for example, are supposed to reclock their inputs as well to eliminate jitter. Have you compared your low cost transports (i.e. < $1000) going into a Big Ben with your low cost transports going directly into a Meridian 861 or a Meridian G68, by chance?

Thanks ...

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.

Somehow I was under the impression that the Meridian 861 (and Meridian G68) will always reclock it's digital inputs, regardless of if it's coming from a Meridian device or not.

That is, if I just input a DVD player (say a Sony DVD player) into the Meridian 861 via a coaxial input, the Meridian would still reclock that signal.

You get other benefits from Meridian components. For example, if I have both a Meridian 800 and a Meridian 861, then the Meridian 800 will decode the AC3 signal to allow other signal improvements with the 861's DSP processors.

Am I mistaken? Does the Meridian 861 only reclock signals from other Meridian components and no others?

Thanks for the clarification ...

Jeff,

I *think* the 861 does reclock, but am not certain. My Mark Levinson Reference DAC and TacT units also reclock, but they both still benefit from using a Big Ben... others have reported the same in other forums.

I think most reclocking devices reclock on-the-fly, that is they determine the average incoming clock cycle, but this still allows for jitter in the incoming signal if samples go outside of that average. The Big Ben uses a buffer to capture the incoming signal and then generates a perfectly timed output signal with unmeasurable jitter levels. Subsequent devices are then able to perfectly reclock *without any errors* because they have a perfect incoming signal.

Essentially, the Big Ben can be used to turn any transport's digital output into a perfect digital stream. Hence my earlier comment about high-end transports no longer being needed.

Cheers,

Mark

[This message has been edited by Mark_H (edited 05-26-2004).]