Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems 861v8 - still a good buy?

Hello M community - I am a new member of the forum and looking for some advice. The last couple of weeks I have read many threads and have received many insights here - thank you.

The various posts lead me to the decision to buy 8000SEs as front speakers in a home theatre setup (starting with 5.1). Music and Video are of similar high importance to me. Initially, it was obvious to me to go for a 861 in conjunction with 218 (MQA). However, it seems that many users are going away from 861 for other alternatives.

Suddenly, I am no longer sure, what the right combination should be for me:
-861 with 218
-818 with G65
-218 with 3rd party

Personally, I d like to combine M products in the entire setup. So my initial choice seems to be great, as long as I can wait a bit longer for 3D sound. However, is 861 still going to evolve? For instance, why is MQA not part of 861? What about Atmos in a later stage?

Any ideas or reflections are highly appreciated - thank you very much.

Lots of info on new products being drip fed - none in the wild at the moment as far as I am aware so Meridian and/or your dealer should have the most up to date info and whether they fit your use cases. Some designed to work with third party products which opens up other solutions and possibly indicate a wind down of some of the current lineup.

Tough call. Personally, I believe that M will (eventually) "do the right thing" with the 861 and G6x in due course, in terms of handling *decoded* MQA on the input side, applying DSP, and outputting renderable MQA on the processor outputs. (That's actually quite a bit of development and testing effort.) I am less confident that M will add an MQA decoder card to the 861 and I feel that the G6x will never get MQA decoding.

Having spoken to some key people at Meridian recently, I know that Meridian was placed at a disadvantage by being the first to release MQA products. The rules on what MQA can be output, in what form, and where, were more restrictive back then and have changed since those first products (SE speakers and 808v6/818v3) were released. For example, AFAIK the TIDAL PC/Mac apps will perform the first stage decode and output a renderable "MQA stream" which can be received by an 818v3.

The problem is complete uncertainty over timescales. It's really clear that M has been working on a *lot* of new products to kick-start its custom install business, so it's understandable that updates to existing products have been dumped down the list of priorities. Perhaps now is a good time to buy a used 861v8, but not a new one? But if you want to buy new, maybe hold off and get a 218 in the interim, perhaps with a used G65.

These are my opinions only and I have no inside knowledge of Meridian roadmaps.

Welcome to the forum. Regarding the above, I would say possibly for MQA, highly unlikely for the 3D audio codecs. For the latter, IMHO it will be a new version equipped with the required processing power. In light of the 271, one would predict that this is not coming anytime soon. If you do decide to go down the 861 path, as suggested above, I would go down the used path.

Thank you for your thoughts - very helpful.

If I were to buy a G65 (probably next two years?), how much of quality compromise do I have to take?

Given the 861v8 seems not to evolve anymore, does Meridian offer either some "trade-in" arrangements with the next generation product OR special late-sale discount?

Is there a place where second hand 861v8 can be found?

You’ll get conflicting views on this as with DSPs as your speakers you are not leaving the digital arena in the processor. IMHO, the main advantage of the 861 is that it can act as a self-contained Roon endpoint via an ID41 card. (I still miss my 861 regarding this!)

There may or may not be an official trade-in option but in my experience the best Premium dealers offer good trade-in deals.

Keep a look out in the Restaurant on this forum or even place a wanted add

With regard to 861v8 vs. G65 in a DSP loudspeaker system:

Meridian would say every time, that with DSP speakers (or analogue), the 861v8 gives the best sound quality. However, I know that Meridian was also particularly pleased with the G65 from an audio quality perspective, so I'm guessing that it's close.

For me, the essence of the 861 was that you got the *very best* audio quality, you got it *earlier* than any other Meridian kit, it was *upgradeable*, and it was *very expensive*. Of those attributes, I would say that (probably) only the first and last still hold sway, with a question mark over the marginal improvement in audio quality over the G65.

I have upgraded from a G65 to a 861v8. Not entirely possible to compare these two because of a complete redesign of the livingroom but I hear a lot of extra information not there when I was using the G65.

That said I am sure most of the gain in performance is due to the new livingroom layout and acoustic ceailings. Also I moved from a MS200 to ID41 dunno if that has any effect.

Given the retail cost of a pair of new DSP8000SE speakers (never mind the rest of the 5.1 system) a G65 (plus a HD621/722) is only a small percentage (less than 10%) of the total cost of the system.

Brian

Thank you all - this is great information. Interesting remark wrt streaming. As this is very importance to me, I am tempted to stick with the 861v8.......maybe there is a good buy opportunity in order to avoid material depreciation in short period of time.....

There is one for sale on gumtree Australia, recently serviced by Meridian, 5 year warranty, 240 volt

There is one available in the Restaurant at the moment (in the UK).

Brian