Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Off Topic Meridian vs. other high end brands

I don't think legacy brands are M'a issue. It's the new girl, with the better ... that has everyone looking. :-)

By this I mean, M pretty much handed trinnov the high end home theater market. It was looking like Dirac and then out of the blue comes a French beauty called Altitude. No one wanted the Gentle Art of room correction". I know four people off the top that used to own 861's, that are now devout Trinnov owners. Trinnov is what M used to be. Cutting edge with great service.

I cannot comment on DSP's or other bits. Never understood the allure of DSP's. My time with 7200's didn't blow me away.

Other brands Ayre. Good, but changes products too frequently and doesn't support legacy hardware like M. I haven't owned before, but my interaction with Aesthetix has been remarkable and demos I have heard put them in the best I ever heard category".

Imagine what would have happened if M didn't buy Sooloos! I wonder if M would have ceased to exist years ago?

I owned 7200s for about a month and was left completely underwhelmed and almost moved on from DSP's. then I gave the 8k's a shot and never looked back. the 8k's are incredible, but the 7200s I felt were muddy and flat and uninspired. I'm sure the new iteration 7200SE's are far better.

The problem I think Meridian have is they were cutting edge, if you wanted the best av processor it was arguably the 861.
You can't play the cutting edge game short term, you get left behind pretty quickly.



Quad have done OK because they have stayed classic, sure they had a hard time when everyone moved away from 2 channel to multichannel a few years back but you look at their products today and they don't look dated as they are a classic product.


I don't get why Meridian didn't do a G02 or G22, stereo pre amp with DAC, room correction, crossovers and sub out etc.
It was all there already, just needed to market it.


Anyway, Meridian are now into kitting out new builds, houses, boats etc. which is a very lucrative market apparently.

i don't care if M start providing audio solutions to a Ponzi like Tesla, or outfitting go-carts, so long as they keep refining their DSP's and one day update their processors to be cutting edge again.

I have owned B&K, Lexicon, Theta, Meridian, and now Trinnov. Each time, except with Trinnov, I purchased both units and A/B tested in my system. Each time I heard a substantial improvement in sound quality and I settled on the 861 which I had upgraded several times. Meridian then fell behind with lack of new audio codecs, inferior room correction, and high upgrade pricing.

Having made too many changes to my system and moving to a new house I can't comment specifically on Meridian vs Trinnov sound quality. I do find that the Trinnov with the new surround formats and 3D room correction sounds quite phenomenal to my ears and others who have heard it. The ability of Trinnov to upgrade via a software update sealed the deal for me. I have tired of shipping high priced kit for big bucks to be upgraded.

I plan to resurrect my 861/HD621 system as a second system mainly for my wife in our den. For two channel and an external room correction device it should do quite well. I really hope that Meridian steps up this year and becomes relevant again for the high end.

It was quite a sad day for me when I parted with my 861 but I got the impression that its evolution has ceased. The room correction, although good has not changed in 10+ years and as stated above it's being left behind by the new audio codecs. For those not interested in the latter however, it is still an outstanding processor for both music and HT.

I lost patience with the Meridian silence and Trinnov have got my money. The Roon update (available next week) sealed it for me.

I have a suspicion that the "noble cause" development of MQA over a five year period really set back Meridian from a product perspective. It must have sucked in a significant amount of the R&D resource.

Guys pleeeease... Thought the topic Bruce raised is quite fun but dont let it turn out to be a moan about multichannel?

I believe that all of the M 2 channel products is still the pinnacle of sound quality and of reliable design. We have seen quite a bit new releases the past few years up to the very recent Ultra DAC and 218, i like that, that's just enough for me.

I am a Meridian afficionado since early 90's. Except for a minor repair on a 557 i never had a reliability issue. I was always cable, speaker and DAC tweaking, drove me around the twist. Going from 557/Maggie to DSP 5k to 7k2.2's, no regrets. Since my v3 and SE i am content to have a very fine sounding and great looking system which plays all kinds of music extremely well. Tidal over Sooloos equals heaven.

My good ole' 506.20 i donated to a good friend still plays daily through the M Director combined with a 501, a refurbished Quad 303 ( i once bought for a vinytage Stax earspeaker) into his nice pair of sonus faber concertino.

I am not deaf and blind for other mouthwatering brands but would not consider going back to the often complex space wasting hifi gear, i mean for me nothing beats the simplicity and sound quality of a full blown Meridian 2 ch set up. 8kSE is the only itch for the moment. No multichannel for me, no film fan, altough for the tellie a nice soundbar would be nice, getting curious about that thing Dr Aix spams about.

Cheers!

+1 Thanks Dirk. The original intent of this was to compare how the other high end brands stack up against Meridian in the specified catagories.

Hi,

Musical Fidelity ? Have had my P170 as long as the 201 and after 26 years use it finally had a MOSFET die last year. Repaired and still doesn't miss a beat.

Admittedly, it and the 201 have been modified.

Ian

Quad do still repair their old equipment in the UK, though. I am about to send in a Quad 33 and a 303 for a friend for for a full service and repair and I have sent in my own ESL-63s every now and then.