Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Hardware with Roon Application How Much Will Roon Cost?

DSD is not a "promised extra". Full DSD support on Roon was already released a few weeks ago.

A question also worth considering against any Meridian purchases!!

For example, let's say that 12 months ago you paid ~£50k for an 818v2 plus a D8kSE pair.......and you bought the kit after perusing much of the Spec Sheet promises of "Upgradeability" and "Firmware Updates" etc., etc

What "guarantee" were Meridian offering 12 months ago about either DSD or the-yet-to-be-announced MQA??

And as we stand in June 2015, what guarantee do you have that you will not need to pay more to the £50k you've already paid, in order to enjoy MQA??.........[in fact it's pretty clear that it will cost you more to get "full-fat" MQA into the 12 month old kit!!]

So as regards your question about Roon and Lifetime Subscription........do you know if Meridian plan to charge a Licence Fee to Hardware / Software suppliers??......I certainly don't know.......I strongly suspect Roon and other manufacturers don't know.......and it may be that even Meridian don't know what they're going to do

So how could Roon [or any other supplier] offer MQA as part of their Lifetime Subscription, when they don't know how much, if anything, it's going to cost them??

IMHO, it's reasonable to expect that the Roon product you see today to evolve greatly over time......and features and flexibility will be added......and many of these features will be included as part of the lifetime subscription.....that is a reasonable expectation

To expect MQA or Dolby Atmos for Music [my invention] be included is unrealistic.......at least until Meridian and Dolby announce that their Licensing will be free to manufacturers

Actually I would hope in addition to DSD already included that MQA is included for Meridian's sake. There is a real concern that MQA adoption will be severely limited if chargeable to the end user as the take up will be negligible in the wider market. MQA costs will need to be embedded in the overall cost structure of the music industry if it is to succeed. Audiophiles probably count for <0.01% of music users, which is part of the problem of course.

As an example I looked at the Muse website recently for the HD release of their new album Drones. CD on the High Street £8.99, digital download 44.1k/16bit £9.99, HD audio 24/96 £16.99. Justify that if you can - I can't get past total bl**dy ripoff myself. Guess what - I own the CD, and had to rip it ... so passé. (yes I know I can play it on Roon but also want it for portable players.)

The real pity is the "masses" are being denied decent quality audio (and most are none the wiser) whilst the industry totally unjustifiably screws those who are interested in SQ.

MQA is an opportunity to spread higher quality music to all for negligible oncost, the sheer volume of music out there could make M a handsome return. Will it happen?

M seem to do that with some of their retail prices, but for real.

As for MQA, I'm not sure Roon need to be involved in payment. All they need to do is pass through the data bit perfect, so they ought to be agnostic on whether a track is MQA-coded or not.

I'm keeping out of M pricing

Re Roon/MQA - you are correct if there is a downstream MQA decoder, however I assume they may well want to offer it for other installations.

Goes back to the question as to which products M will offer MQA decoding on, and if there is to be a cost.

The improvement over CD for those not decoding MQA should be enough to justify it being offered. The streaming companies could then start a Quality war as opposed to a race to the bottom.

You may think I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one... (John Lennon)

Thoughts and hopes, Chris

Chris,

I think you're being a Double Fantasist... (not quite John Lennon)

People have been sold cheap music (by Apple etc) for too long. Quality is now a niche market.

Patience is a virtue, except we all want MQA today..

I wonder if MQA will be offered as a firmware update for existing G Series kit.

As for the lifetime cost of Roon, being $499/£321, I would rather buy the physical QNAP kit on which to install the (free) MDMS Core.

QNAP (Amazon UK prices)...
TS-251 = £248 (as utilised by M at the Munich High End Audio Show), or,
TS-451 = £340 (4 Bay version of TS-251)

That would be without disks.

Russ

Of course M have only said that Core could be run on a QNAP (for which I thank them). What they haven't said is what spec QNAP is needed to run Core effectively.

Given the spec for Roon to run effectively it remains to be seen how much M can squeeze out of a relatively lower specced NAS CPU and RAM.

I've got enough disks already. Even so, it's cheaper to source the required size/disks yourself.

Last week, I discussed the merit of running the MDMS Core on a QNAP TS-251 with Des Ford at M. He didn't contradict my premise of running an MS200 from a TS-251 with MDMS Core.

You can add extra RAM to a TS-251/451 yourself. It sports a 2.41GHz dual-core Intel processor, so I wouldn't exactly call it underpowered.

When it is running core, decoding all files to PCM; decoding DSD and encapsulating hi-res into MQA I would expect some machines to feel the strain.

Some folks will also have their NAS doing other duties so the variables increase.

This all takes Sooloos use outside of the closed system that it has been so far (ignoring QNAP store for a mo). As a closed system M could spec the units with reasonable confidence.

Will be interesting to see what the recommendations are.