Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems I just got some M6's ... now what?

I recently came to own a pair of lovely Meridian M6 loudspeakers. They look great, sound good, and they're made of barium-infused plastic. What could be better than that?!

Well... the issue is that apparently I need to feed the M6s from a Meridian source like the MC200 (which could also be the name of an 80s hip hop musician, I'm not sure).

But, I don't have a Meridian source. This leaves me with 3 options (I think).

1) Buy a Meridian Source. This is unappealing to me, because I don't have a couple thousand $$ to spend on a media controller. Are there other options that are significantly less expensive?

2) Sell them. This seems reasonable, but I'm not sure if anyone is in the market. If any of you chaps are, let me know.

3) I could make an adapter to feed the M6s through their preferred SpeakerLink connection. I'm told via this thread that SpeakerLink is basically AES/EBU with some control signals. I can adapt the output of my Raspberry Pi media center to SPDIF pretty easily, which can then be converted to balanced AES/EBU, from there to SpeakerLink, but what about this "control" signal? What does the control signal do? Is it important? Can I live without it?

Let me know what you think, and if I'm missing some attractive option to connect these lovely speakers.
Thanks,
JR

An AC200 will allow you to feed it most anything. I suggest this as it comes with no ifs, ands, or buts.

The M6's are a very nice speaker. There is a lot of slick tech and materials used for its manufacture.

You could look for a AC200 (think preamp) it allows you to add a number of sources and gives you access to a number of set-up features as well as control of bass & treble etc. Meridian just dropped the price to $1500 this past spring. You might contact some Meridian dealers as they may have a used one or a demo for even less.

One set of options, among many, is:

1) buy/run Roon on your Mac/PC (assuming you own a computer) - as your music source,
2) 2x home plugs - such as those by Devolo - as a home Ethernet network,
3) a Meridian MS200 connected to your M6's.

Congrats on your new purchase!

1) Meridian sources are very high in audio quality, and expensive compared to other brands. Also, there has been a change in how the DSP speakers are fed audio, the old style digital audio cables (plain) + Comms (for on/off and volume control) as compared to the newer combined SpeakerLink connections.

The newer SpeakerLink sources (perhaps like AC200) or G61SL are very rarely encountered on eBay/Audiogon in the United States.

The MS200 would provide a SpeakerLink audio input functionality that Sooloos (free from Meridian dealers) and Roon (not free, annual or perpetual license required) could use.

2) Selling is an option. there is a marketplace forum on this website.

3) This is probably your cheapest option. MI (forum member) makes custom cables of very high quality, I would suggest messaging him with your requirements. Also, I believe if you make your left speaker (the convention) a "Master" and buy a MSR+ remote, you can "wake up" and control the volume of the DSP pair with the remote control.

Don't recall seeing IR control on M6's - which rules out MSR without optional IR receiver in some form or other. There is though vMSR which may just work with an RS232 to SpeakerLink dongle plus something to drive it, or may not... does M6 have RS232 control?

Best bet, imho, as already suggested, is MS200 plus Sooloos or Roon - but that excludes other audio sources.

Or just sprinkle catnip over them and let the cats use them as a scratching post - they were never my cup of tea and I've heard worse descriptions for them.

Would love to hear the story of show you came to own them though.

my apologies, I hadn't realized the M6's lack an IR input. Could a MS200 be an adequate workaround ?

Yes, the MS200 has an IR receiver that would need to be ticked in set up.

So many responses, thanks guys!

Does the MS200 allow additional room correction/DSP? I'll need to dig in a little more on this Roon business. Currently I use Squeezlite (Squeezebox server) on the RPI -- it doesn't seem like the MS200 supports Squeezebox as a front end and Roon doesn't work on Linux.

If there was just a USB to SpeakerLink convertor, that would be all I need, but it doesn't seem that such a thing exists, sadly.

I won them in a raffle from a local audio shop.

If there was just a USB to SpeakerLink convertor, that would be all I need, but it doesn't seem that such a thing exists, sadly. [/quote]

There is, it's called an AC200 or 818v3

correction: Roon does run on linux (I run Roon Server on a virtualized Debian linux install). There are x86 and arm versions of the linux build. Roon also supports Squeeze in some form, not too familiar with it, though.