Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems New: Meridian Ultra DAC

I had expected this news to spawn a full speculation thread overnight.

So, in that spirit, it should be DSD and MQA capable, and perhaps have an on-board volume control.

But what else could it be other than an 818v3 without the analogue inputs, digital outputs and the ID41 card?

It would surely be in a smaller chassis?

I've given some more thought to this and I think that the rationale for a high-end DAC product is obvious: The Brinkmann Audio Nyquist MQA DAC has just been announced and M needs a high-end DAC to compete with this and future MQA-DAC products in the far larger analogue market - at a lower price than the 818.

As you speculate Gianni, It could be as simple as taking 2 (analogue input and digital output) or 3 cards (previous two + ID41) out of an 818v3, but if that's the case, they are going to lose out on sales to the DAC purists, because the 818v3 can't handle anything above 192k PCM rates (including DSD128 and DSD256 over PCM). In 2016, it should have unrestricted sample rate Sooloos (ID42?), RAAT, or another network-streaming protocol (I discovered Ravenna today) and handle everything up to at least DSD256 natively.

As an 800-series product, I would expect it to have the 800-series case, which is a known quantity from an engineering perspective. However, I could well be wrong and will follow this one closely as it will be a pointer to the future of the 818.

It's a bit surprising that there are no photos out in the wild (or I just can't find them).

My interest is piqued.

I am teetering on the edge of buying a non-Meridian network DAC for my headphones setup. Maybe this will meet my needs.

Hey everyone, just a heads-up from Meridian that they are not announcing a new DAC publicly in Munich this week; however we can expect something public the week after next.

Confusingly, this press release mentions a " MQA demo featuring the MQA-enabled Meridian 818v6 Reference Audio Core"

Soundserge

My 818v3's not out of date already?!

V6 must be a typo? A funny one since some are speculating v9 already, how disappointing... (LOL)

To clarify, MQA clearly meant 808v6. From Meridian: "818v6 is not a thing... Nor will it become one the week after next "

What would peoples' best guess re pricing be?

We don't know anything about this device. I can't see on what basis one could guess a price.