Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems DSP5000 v DSP5500 differences

That's very true but it's true irrespective of speaker. This side of installing false walls, the room size is what it is.

You should place your speakers on the long side of the room, not the short one. Doing so, you can place the speakers away from the corners and the wall to avoid to early reflections.

The sound influence of the distance to the back wall you can minimize with the M speaker built in sound correction.That's easy to enable and help with "corner" and "wall" placement.

I would make here the priority on the placement of the speakers.
I would go for a listen to find out which speakers you prefer. It depend on your musical taste and the loudness of your hearing.

I've not heard of placing speakers across the length of the room recommended before, quite the opposite, but anything is worth trying until you find a sound you like!

GIK acoustics have some solid advice on their information pages which are really good for helping with optimal setup. Personally I'd place the speakers facing down the length of the room and seating position about 1/3 way into it, AND treat early reflection points.

The advice I got from GIK was to try firing the speakers down the long dimension; not across the short one. I have tried both and can say that long is best as long as you can deal with things that happen.

With 5m free space behind the sitting position I expect that it will sound pretty good. There might be a bit of bass bouncing back from the back wall though. The back corners might benefit from treating. The 5500 are definitely man enough for the task.

However, it can all be done over time after much experimenting I would say.

I preferred 5500 over 5000 as the mid and bass was handled much better with the separate amps. 5000 and 5200 both get a bit too muddled in that area IMHO.

I like heavier bass music so do pay attention to that.

Hi Mike
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Hector

I have both, they are both mark 1's.

The 5500 suffered from too much bass until I replaced the tweeters and it was a whole new ball game, they are so much more balanced and detailed now. I have them in a small room that before the tweeter switch they overwhelmed the room, but now they sound great.

The 5000's didn't compare to the 5500's even before the tweeter change, I'm thinking the 5000's will benefit from a tweeters change also (see the tweeter thread regarding the ferrofluid filled tweeter).

Thanks, have now done!

I have listened to 5000's and 5500's and would choose the 5500's every time although the 5000's are fantastic speakers.

I would have thought that speakers firing down the short side of the room would cause bass issues. I have experimented and every time have found that a decent space behind the listening position is favourable. I currently sit 14ft from the front of my speakers (which are big and produce lots of bass) and have just over the same behind me. I tried the other way just for curiosity and the sound was much worse.

Whatever way you go both speakers are fantastic and I am sure you will enjoy.

One thing I forgot to mention was scale - the sound of the 5500's is much "bigger" than the 5000's - a large scale sound vs. a lot smaller with the 5000's.

Ever since I got the 5500's, I have been using some sort of DSP bass management. I used to use a very expensive Z-sys RDP-1
See my review with 5500's Rodneys Review and have continued using it till I got a Dspeaker antimode 2.

Right now I am fiddling with a Minidsp openDRC di which is $299 and does what the z-sys did and more, it works brilliantly with the Meridian system.

Apart from bass management, I also tend to find the Meridian speakers a little too polite and their inbuilt tone controls act too grossly, I like a very slight lift starting at 4-5k and up by 2dB at 20k. The treble controls on the speakers start acting much lower down.

Hi Brian,

Although you say you would choose 5500s over 5000s I notice that your sig indicates you are well tooled up with PMC speakers.

I currently use FB1s myself and like the PMC sound. What differences would I notice do you think? And more importantly, why are you using PMC rather than Meridian's, if I may ask?

Cheers
Mike