Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Automotive Meridian in Jaguar XF

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Like the Meridian web site - a bit out of date ....
(50)

So York then, google maps says 36 minutes each way, if you'd set off before all your posts about it you would be back by now?

Russ

Ah but there are road "improvements" going on outside York which "improve" the journey time to over an hour

Have you not learned that if I did not have bad luck I would have no luck at all???
(Old Meridian saying)

You make your own luck.

Bye

Russ

Is this getting a bit personal chaps?

I am taking delivery of the Meridian top of the range system in my new XF sportsbrake in two weeks.

When it was demoed I compared it with the normal system and the lower range Meridian system - and of course years of third party hi fi in my current Jag.

The higher set really was impressive. Very clean, tight well presented sound - really the best I have ever heard.

Can't wait for accompanying my long and regular trips. For those who say I should be concentrating on my driving ... ******** ******

But then of course I am a moaner! Getting on certain Hitchhikers nerves with my complaints.

When Meridian get it right I will say, and when they get it wrong ... well ... yes it ... (getting it wrong).... gets on my nerves too.

Am I right in thinking the in-car systems only support MP3 files?

Good question
I did email on the Meridian website asking such a question.
I received an automated reply that they would respond as soon as possible
That was 2 months ago?
I do believe however that they CAN play WAV files off a USB but as USB can come in various sizes I do not know what capacity I can buy - so I will have to slowly increment. A waste of time but - hey - I am just a customer.
It also seems they don't actually play cds, they read them in and then play from a hard drive .. very odd but I suppose they have worked out a reason for that. I may be wrong but as nobody seems to know much about these things, then it is a question of wait and see.
Anyway - should be worth it from what I have heard so far.

I found this Meridian Jaguar XF. It doesn't list WAV, I guess there's only one way to find out.

Regards,
Carl

I'm assuming it's the same Meridian system as I have in my Freelander - in which case, you can play a CD as normal in the single slot head unit, but you can also rip up to 10 CDs (complete with Gracenote metadata) in lossless onto the HDD.

Playing AAC and WMA is not normal, compared to MP3, WAV and FLAC, so if the system plays those I am sure it is just a matter of an incomplete listing.

I wonder if WMA has anything to do with the hard drive. It seems it is converting CD audio from the CD part into something different. I wonder if it has some similarity to the conversion taking place with say WAV files into an MD600/Sooloos?

It does not state that it WMA is the lossless version so if I understand it correctly, it is only an 'MP3' alternative.

Is AAC is a better quality? I Don't know, never used it.

I have already mass converted my home WAV files to 320 MP3s in a separate drive so a decent MP3 is pretty ok for a car. WAV though would obviously be the icing on the cake and require more USB pens lying around - depending on the power going through the USB port and the size USB it can support, which at present is unknown.

It would have been nice to get a response from Meridian. Yes I will have to wait and see, but these are simple questions that Meridian have not answered and Jaguar staff have no idea on this front. Spending a lot extra and not being able to find the spec of the extra, is somewhat frustrating.

Funnily enough the phone has just gone with the dealer telling me my car is with him as from yesterday. He confirmed that the Meridian handbook states that the system plays WAV files although the advertising blurb does not state. He also confirms that it appears the CD is ripped to the hard drive prior to play. Something reminds me it can hold the last 6 CDs (10 according to the recent post from Ian) therefore in its memory thus reducing the need for physical CDs lying around the car. That seems a great feature - maybe Ian can say if he uses that much or not.

Also there is on the spec in the handbook (as verbally told over the phone) DTS capabilities and thus I think it will play DVD audio - which will be rather interesting as certainly on my list of things to test.

The dealer also told me that in his opinion the sound from a CD is better than from a USB pen, but I would assume he is then comparing MP3s to CD audio (converted), which is not a fair comparison.

These are two very different formats (DVD-A is MLP) I doubt very much it will be able to play DVD-A).

It will be interesting to find how it performs once you've had some time experimenting with it.

Regards,
Carl