Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems 861v8 Upgrade - USB Questions

Meridian quickly sent me a second card (thanks Edd for organising that), which was considerably less crackly. But the crackles completely disappeared when I changed USB port on my (late 2008 Unibody) Macbook!

So it appears the (documented) difference in power between the two ports caused the ID29 problems. And moreover that my earlier card was more sensitive to the issue than the replacement one.

Around the same time MAudio were advising users to plug their USB audio products into specific ports depending on which Macbook it was. So it's a wider issue than Meridian, and I'm not sure it's one the audio manufacturers are going to be able to fix, particularly if the bad USB ports are simply out of spec.

With the right port, the ID29 sounds very good indeed. Much better than optical from the same Macbook. But after an evening of well-loved tracks, clearly not as good as the ID41. Still, for various reasons I'm finding myself using the ID29 a lot.

Now all we need is multichannel USB in.