Originally Posted by Mtns
What really is the MD600 but a NAS with programmed restrictions? Endpoints will soon be able to run from Roon(Sooloos 3 to me) in addition to Sooloos 2.2 for some fee which is unknown. I hear the cries for patience but silence itself speaks. At the end of the day the parties leave the separation with the intellectual property left with the creator. As M is partially (assumption on my part) owned by Private Equity, they surely would have enforced any intellectual property contractual rights M held; unless in the mutual self interest of both parties this is the way forward. I take comfort in the fact that I can't see why their interests and M's don't align and hope this can help MQA really get off the ground.

Pure speculation on my part, fed by some comments on here and my own computer ignorance mixed in...

Could this parting of ways be down to those programmed restrictions, presumably some of it is to keep the "computer" side of the Store/Core down to a minimum? The push for the kit to be more and more capable needing more processing power and RAM etc may lead to noiser boxes and potentially, at least, risk to the sound quality? MQA is going to require some highly accurate timing to fully reproduce the nuances for instance, will this be better or worse in a NAS with more or less EMI/RFI? Additionally I don't imagine that telling us payed-up customers that our expensive and underpowered kit wasn't whizzy enough to run the new Sooloos 3 would have gone down too well with us, the enthusiastic end-user community. Will we see Meridian quietly extricate themselves from the MD600/MC*00 part of the market and stick to audio endpoints?

Sooloos 2 sounds sublime to me so I'll remain very happy I expect. S2.2 hasn't brought me very much yet, I'm trying the free Tidal introduction, the quality is good I agree, but I cannot find much by some of my favourite artists which is disappointing and whilst I continue to buy and enjoy physical media �240 per year is more than it's worth to me. Additionally I still feel the $/� thing is a rip-off that I struggle to reconcile. Maybe I'm just not born to be a streamer?

Richard