I agree with MarkS on the balanced bit, and I am a committed stereo man (i.e. two channel only). I started out with a Meridian 551 and Meridian A500 speakers nine years ago. Then I added a 555 and bi-amped the system, which gave improvement. Then I switched to a 502 pre-amp and a 557 power amp, which I still have - with the same A500 speakers!! This is steps ahead of the 551/555 combo. I have listened to many other speakers and have found that I will have to spend at least �6000 to get something significantly better than I have (B&W Nautilus 802s are on my wish list).

So, you might want to review your amp situation as well/instead of the speakers?? You could add a secondhand 556 and get 100W per channel and either use just the 556 to drive the speakers (with the 551 acting as a pre-amp) or bi-amp the speakers. HOWEVER, if you decide to bi-amp, then you must ensure that the power amp you use has the same Gain as your 551 - otherwise you will be feeding different strengths of signal to the different components in your speakers and then the sound really will be unbalanced!! I know the 555 is OK for this and I think the 556 is too, but check on the Meridian website or with Meridian Tech Support by phone before buying a 556.

Also, if you like B&W Nautilus and can go �500 over your budget (to �3,500), get the 803s as they are significantly more open sounding than the smaller 804s.

[This message has been edited by 123hifiman (edited 07-02-2004).]

Meridian G08 CD Player, McIntosh C2300 valve pre-amp, 2 x McIntosh MC601 monoblocks, B&W 802Ds with IsoAcoustics GAIA 1s, AudioQuest Aspen speaker cables, Chord and Audioquest inter-connects, Shunyata power cables, Furman power conditioner, Sennheiser HD650 with Schiit Audio Asgard 3 Headamp