I haven't really been able to listen to it properly since the firmware upgrade as my 5200VC failed its update at the same time and is now nothing more than a paperweight.
Keep trying. With most/all? Meridian kit you cannot brick it with a firmware update as the firmware loader is never overwritten so is always available even with a firmware update failure.
That's not to say that hardware faults with the controller have not caused issues at the point that firmware updates have been applied but that is a extremely rare hardware fault and not the same as bricking kit with a duff firmware update.