Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Meridian Sooloos update

Great announcement and much appreciated.

I’m also curious on DSD, which is a big step forward and very welcome in making M gear more generally compatible with other systems.

It looks as if Sooloos cores will be able to stream DSD (in DoP format) to all endpoints (if that is what is meant by the statement “the core mediates all formats to the various endpoints and no-one will be left behind”) but I am not clear how this is then decoded within DSPs. Presumably new DSP firmware will be required or will DSD be converted to PCM on the fly? Will there be a different protocol for the lower cost endpoints (MS200, MS600 etc) or for non-SE DSPs? Can anyone clarify?

I don’t think there are any SACD players out there that send unencrypted DSD output over SPDIF (Ludwig’s question) but there are plenty of third party streamers that will provide an unencrypted DoP output (eg from a DSD rip or download) on USB and a few that will provide DoP output on SPDIF. However, presumably the way to get DoP into the 818v3 is mainly via a Sooloos (or for that matter, Roon) core to the ID41. What I don’t understand is how the output will be dealt with in digital format for sending to third party DSD capable DACs. Will the 818v3 SPDIF outputs be enabled for DoP or will there be a DoP USB output in due course, or will DSD only be available on the analogue outputs of the 818 v3 when used in this mode?

In the case of use of the 818v3 with DSPs, I am guessing that if DSPs are updated to accept a DoP signal it will be provided by the 818v3 via MHR in one form or another. This appears to be the plan with DXD, judging by the statement. Plain vanilla 16/44 upsampled to DXD will be another big step forward and I am really looking forward to being able to put my large DSD collection onto Sooloos and being able to play it on M equipment. Great stuff!

I guess the only piece of key info missing from the statement was any guidance on the lower cost endpoint replacements (MS200, MS600) for compatibility in an MQA world.