Hi HitchHikers,

Thank you for all the comments so far today. We thought you might like answers to a couple of the questions and comments about the Prime Headphone Amplifier, so hopefully this post direct from HQ will be helpful.

The Prime Headphone Amplifier is, at core, a pure analogue product and in designing it we considered four targets:

a) The headphone enthusiast
b) An �up-and-coming� audiophile who starts with a desktop system
c) A high-performance system owner who wants to add headphone capability (e.g. owners of Meridian 8x8 or any high-end CD/streamer)
d) The �extreme� audiophile with a penchant for analogue only

Why pure analogue?
To satisfy the target customers we put our full analogue design skills in the Prime Headphone Amplifier and that is why the USB section powers the digital stages and DAC. In other words, if there is no USB connection then there is no digital circuitry in operation, reducing background noise to its absolute minimum. It would have been 'natural' for Meridian to do the volume control and Spatial Processing in DSP but here it is in the analogue domain.

Why no SPdif?
As mentioned elsewhere on this thread, adding SPDIF would have added permanent digital activity in the headphone amplifier and the majority of �desktop� listeners have either analogue sources (sound card, iPod, smartphone) or will use USB. There is not much need for digital (SPDIF) in the desktop environment but where it is desired we feel most listeners would use a dedicated DAC.

Balancing Act
The reason why balanced outputs were not considered for this product is that there is no performance benefit given USB and unbalanced inputs plus the fact that most headphones are three wire. For headphones with "twin wiring" (using a separate cable for L/R transducers) we have compatibility and that is identical to balanced.

About those LEDs
Based on user feedback (thanks VK et al) we actually implemented a change to turn the intensity of the LEDs down before going into full production.

Future Firmware
We also have an upcoming firmware release for 8x8 to enable DSP speakers to mute when using the analogue out to make integration of the Prime Headphone Amplifier even easier.

Hopefully many of you will take the opportunity to audition the Prime Headphone Amplifier very soon. We look forward to reading about your experiences.

Regards,
Meridian

www.meridian-audio.com