Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems The new 'Director' DAC

This is a real cliffhanger. Hurry back home and Let us know.

It's here, it sounds so good, and yes it's better than the explorer!
On a handfull of records I begin to have a grasp of the improvements over non apodizing.
Sound is very detailed, and relaxed. Wonderful bass and trebles. The depth of sound is so precise and extremely profound. The explorer was no slouch in that aspect, but the Director goes even further in immersing into the layers of the mix.




I only use headphones with the Director, but I may wanna try the M2 with it.
I have my M digital speaker Trifield so I'm all set speakerwise,
Wanted a Meridian DAC for my Stax heaphones, looks like I'm set now.
The Stax is very transparent set and the differences between the explorer and the director are quite significative when directly compared. On the go, the explorer is really good alternative, but sedentary sessions needs the director to fully immerse in audio goodness. The explorer can sound harsh in comparaison, you notice some grit in vocals. Medium in the Director is first class.
I need to listen more than an hour to really get the sound of this DAC, so more to come..

(Beautiful Staxes.)

I just got mine yesterday and I was a little miffed that they didn't supply the USB A to USB B cable, so I had to run out an get one. For OS X, no drivers, so it was plug and go.

So far, so good. I've been playing around with it with and without Bitperfect.

From the limited amount of info, to take advantage of the apodising filter, you set it at the 44K and it does the rest. If you already have 24/96 or 24/192 files, then you have to change the settings on the Midi setup from what it sounds like. I currently have mostly lossless and compressed files and no 24/96 or 24/192 files, but I'm going to get some to try out.

The front selector only changes the source from USB to SPDIF. I am sure like most audio equipment that a little bit of burn in time might improve the sound, but so far, it sounds great.

They do ship with a power supply that connects to the USB port if it's not being used with a computer and they supply a variety of power plug adapters depending on what country you live in, which is nice. They also include a RCA to 1/8 mono adapter and a Toslink to 1/8 inch adapter. But no USB A to USB B cable to connect to a computer.

You can connect an iPad up to a USB DAC (including the Director) up to 96/24 using Apple's Camera Connector Kit ($29). I don't think it works with the iTouch/iPhone though.

Frank, your review was very good as usual, very pro!

About the iPad, the explorer is also known to work with the camera kit. Never tried it, but it looks like a neat little package.

I think you need to power the iPod at the same time as there is not enough juice in to drive the devices by itself.

Thank you. I do my best.

I think I read that the camera kit works (sometimes) with the iPhone with some ancillary app, though I have never really followed it up. You might do a search on YouTube.

I too was bummed when I discovered that USB cable wasn't included!
In fact I have half a dozen of those cable from old scanner and HDD so I just had to dig around, but I was disapointed because I actually really liked the very short cable included with the Explorer. I was expecting the same kind for the Director because a long cable doesn't look that neat.

I let the power supply powering the Director H24 in order to burn in the components. Don't know if it actually changed anything but it couldn't do any wrong letting current flow through those capacitors...

I have to say that I love the sound so much! It is lifelike, very liquid sounding especially with classical recording. I was in heaven just a minute ago listenning to Mahler's fifth symphony (Dudamel)addagietto. The sound I would describe as a kind of balanced and beautiful neutral sounding. The tone of the orchestra is to die for, and I had my little moments where I actually died in plain exctasy...

Setting is as recommend in Director leaflet, wasapi Jriver bitperfect playing FLAC files. Thanks M, it's a very nice product.

It would only work with Jailbroken (Rooted) iPhones as when you just put the Camera Kit into the iPhone / iPod, it says something like "Incompatible Accessory" and that's before you add the Explorer to the mix.

It does work with the iPad without a separate power source, so the Director will likely work as well, albeit drawing even higher power.

I still think a PC / Mac is a better source than the iPad for working with the Explorer and Director if for no other reason than ASync USB.

Regarding the connections, I use a Dune HD D1 mediaplayer & I'm thinking about buying the Director. What is the advantage of Async USB vs optical vs coax.

The Dune only has optical out.

Would a PC with USB be better that media player with optical?

I wish there was a reliable in depth review of the Meridian Director when being use with the following Music Players:

Bit Perfect
Amarra
PureMusic
Audiravana Plus
Fidelia
JRiver
any others????

Obviously, the Meridian has the apodising filter and I've noticed that some software automatically changes 16/44 to 192 in the Audio MIDI Settings, while others change the Audio MIDI settings based on the song. I'm still playing around with the top 5 listed above.

I'm also waiting to get another pair of speakers to play around with and some new cables.


There are all three, so you can use the supplied USB power cable and use either toslink or coax input in the Director if you have a toslink and/or coax output from the PC.

There are considerations. I've read that with USB cables, that some work really well when transferring digital audio signals. MIT and Transparent are two of the more "REASONABLY" priced, but if you have a wad of cash and spend it on the Light Harmonic cable which has lifetime replacement warranty, that's another ultra high end model that is sold to more be used with their DaVinci DAC, which does 24/384 for which there is almost no available content.

I have also read that if you have a lot of USB devices connected to your computer at the same time that are being used, example USB hard drives, etc., that if you have too many USB devices being used, you might have some data problems. IF you aren't using any other USB devices, then you won't. I do know that some of the software might experience problems depending on how your System Settings are set at, so they say to turn off screen savers, energy savers, etc. so there isn't anything that might cause data loss.

Obviously,Optical/coax are dedicated sound interface, that's probably better, BUT, some of use don't have the luxury of using optical/coax.

There is supposed to be an USB cable shootout being done soon by a UK based magazine, but I can't say which mag is going to release it, but I'm sure in due time there will be a USB cable shootout discussing which cables people should use and which ones to avoid if you are interested in USB cables for audio. Apparently, some don't allow proper reliable data transfer, some do.