Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems DSW and DSP5200SL

Does anyone have any experience (or opinions) about whether adding a DSW to 5200s (mainly for music playback) gives any significant enhancement to SQ?

Thanks.

PS before anyone suggests it, a pair of them is out of the question

Hi

Tried it with 72's and it definitely made a difference and in my opinion an improvement, however I moved to 8000's and did not keep the DSW

Russ

I am about to pull the trigger on buying one; I'll report back when I get it. That said, it is strange that there seem to be no reports at all from actual users. I'm guessing they haven't sold many, although I would love to be proven wrong.

Thanks. Look forward to your comments.

I also want to know if you buy one. Do you have heard alot of diffrent subwoofers?

I think that I would buy a subwoofer in the future. I have had an b&w asw4000 sub. In my opinion a very good sub. I never heard a Meridian sub. Maybe i would buy a DSW or another brand.

Adding a sub has more benefits than just the lowest octave, they can smooth out room response and almost always make the soundstage larger as well as having some ambient cues. Also it relieves your mains of trying to reproduce the LF, leading to generally less "forced" sound.

Doesn't really matter what sub you use, so long as it's decent, the biggest issue is how you integrate the subs. In this case a DSW with Meridian gear would probably integrate well...

I used two SVS Ultra 13 Sealed box subs with my Meridian DSP6000's (which are not bass shy) and the result was far better than just the 6k's.

Hi,

I have recently added a DSW to my system which is similar to yours (DSP5000s rather than DSP5200s). Before I added the DSW, I was happy with the sound playing music, but wanted a bit of extra bass when watching movies. I was surprised by how much adding the DSW improved the music sound.

I have now set it up so that it is running during music playback too. It took a little bit of setting up, but it does integrate smoothly with the DSP5000s and doesn't sound like an 'add on'.

I did look at (rather than hear) a B&W DB1 but the footprint was too large for my room. Although still fairly big, the DSW doesn't make too much of a visual impact. I chose mine to be white to match my walls

I'd definitely recommend a listen.

Oh and one should be enough. When calibrating it, I was able to get the entire house to vibrate

I have a 5200SL and DSW, but in a 5.1 setup with 3200 for my rears. Adding DSW certainly makes the range more complete for the 5200SL.

In comparison to my system in my bedroom with 805Ds with a DD+12, the Velodyn is almost like another piece of orchestra where it sings on its own. Where as the DSW is much more transparent and integrated to the rest of the system where it becomes part of the image where you can't really distinguish the sound came from the sub.

Hope this make sense.

Hi JackFlash,

Did you post somewhere on your experience with your new DSW? If not what are your impressions of it please?

Best,

I have had a DSW with 5200SLs up front and 3200s for sides and rears for a few years now.

Contrary to assumption I found it very hard to integrate into the system and much of my initial thoughts were around the 'is it on?' variety. Then with swinging to a bloomy, muddy mess with only a few changes.

There is pretty no useful documentation, given that it is a DSP speaker, on how to integrate it with DSP speakers and Meridian processors.

After much trial and error with configurations such as crossovers, speaker sizes, bass modes and MRC I now have a situation where I can only really tell if it is on when I physically touch the cabinet to feel it shaking. However the 5200SLs as a result now sound like a bigger speaker with a tighter, deeper and more musical extension even if not an earth shaking one.

I think that I am almost there and perhaps as a result would have recommended it as a natural partner to 5200SLs but given the recent developments regarding MQA I am now not so sure. If the 5200SLs do become MQA capable in some fashion or I upgrade to MQA SEs then I have to assume that the latency of DSP operations will change and thus affect the timing and therefore integration between the DSW and 5200SLs. I haven't heard Meridian comment on how MQA and non-MQA speakers will interact in a multi-channel environment which I consider to include a 5200 and DSW pairing. Also given that when the DSW was given an EBA compatible upgrade it seemed as more of an afterthought I have to wonder how much attention it will receive in an MQA world and beyond.

In summary I think that if you have legacy 5200s I would probably on balance recommend the DSW provided that you have no intention of upgrading them to MQA enabled speakers and are happy to spend some considerable time integrating them. If I was doing it again and had no MQA thoughts I would consider the time and effort to integrate them worthwhile and would have made my purchase again.

If I was buying now with MQA intentions I would wait until Meridian issue some clarity on the DSW before making my final purchasing decision.

Hope that this helps.

Cheers,

Tony.

Apologies, I did post a response in another thread here, but not in this thread.

@Tony: I suggest you check with Meridian and make sure your DSW is running the latest firmware. I had the same experience when my DSW was originally delivered. The bass was muddled and sometimes I couldn't tell if it was on or off. Sometimes, I found the bass worse when it was switched on.

I called my dealer and he came out with a Meridian rep. The first thing they did was check the firmware. They reported it was not the latest and upgraded it.

The difference was immense. Now, there is absolutely no question when the sub is on and it integrates very nicely, and produces noticeably more low bass than the 5200s do alone.

According to the Meridian rep, there is no way to tell what firmware version the DSW is running; you can only load new firmware and see if it sounds better. This sounds strange to me, but that's what I was told.

@Clemburt: To sum up, I am very happy with the DSW. The bass is much more powerful with the DSW. Without it, the 5200s do fine except when it's low bass and you want to feel it.

BTW, one thing I found is if I increased the bass +3dB on the 5200s alone (without the DSW), they had nicely improved bass in my room, without being the least bit muddled or "too-bassy". But still not as good as the DSW.

Dear AH and JF,

Very helpful indeed, many thanks.

Best,