Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems A Meeting for Hikers in Huntingdon: Interest Check

Nick

Sorry if I'm missing the point, but why will M miss out on the Roon market if it doesn't support RAAT in it's new products. My 218 and MS200 were supported by Roon and I get MQA from the 218 as well. Presumably all new M products will offer this compatibility with Roon. If my 218 was RAAT compliant, how would I benefit?

Cheers
Tom

On the Roon forum, there are people asking for Roon Ready endpoints. Although Meridian endpoints work with Roon, none are Roon Ready. When people search for Roon Ready, Meridian will not come up.

Hi Tom,

Because there are customers out there that look at the 218 and won't find native DSD, >96k, etc.

In 2017 why should you see your 192/24 music down-sampled when other products don't ?

They will likely choose other DACs and streamers because they do have these things.

As others have also said, it feels like M is lagging behind here.

Thanks Nick - Is the only way that M could offer this is by being RAAT ready?

Hi Tom,

Of course not, M could update the Sooloos protocol to offer functionally equivalent features to RAAT or develop another brand new in-house protocol... but why do that when RAAT is a proven technology that many of Meridian competitors are adopting.

Then of course if M were to update the Sooloos protocol or develop a new one, would:

- Meridian allow Roon to take advantage of it?
- Would Roon be interested in supporting it?

I don't see many [any?] Roon users dropping it and switching back to Sooloos so they can stream to M hardware.
Roon users would look to other hardware and M would lose out on hardware sales.

Regards,
Carl

I understand how legacy Meridian streaming hardware is tied to Sooloos, however new Meridian streaming hardware I suspect could and should have been capable of RAAT support, when I configure my MicroRendu I am given the option to use UPNP, Roon and various other options, could Meridian hardware not have something similar that could be accessed from their respective config pages eg Sooloos or RAAT?

If Roon stopped supporting Meridian’s Sooloos protocol I would have to choose between keeping my two MS600’s and going back to Sooloos or keeping Roon and purchasing new endpoints, I suspect I would become the owner of new endpoints

Changing the subject, anyone going to the Hifi News show in Windsor this weekend?

Russ

Agree with Carl. Of course HQ "could" do anything they wanted. However, I expect Sooloos is hardly the revenue stream it once was. It is most unlikely to warrant any significant product development cycles £££.

Roon has proven to be a lot more successful than some at HQ imagined when the split happened.

M's revenue stream should be more streamers and DACs selling without the overhead of developing Sooloos to add those missing features. That means Roon and RAAT.

I agree, and recent explorations have shown me that Meridian does seem to be lagging a little these days just in terms of Network solutions.

Just as one example, although there are more, having just casually looked at B&O active speakers, specifically the Beolab 50, (no, I'm not about to change my 7200s, I was just curious) I was struck by how B&O seem to be taking more advantage of the active/DSP nature of the speaker. A few of the things they have been doing for some time are also things some of the users here have been asking for an equal amount of time. E.g., multiple types of Room Correction/EQ/Parametric EQ, etc. built into the speakers' own DSP (and all controlled/tweaked with a smartphone app rather than an old RS232 adapter, by the way...). They even test each individual speaker after manufacture in an anechoic chamber and tweak the base DSP filters to compensate for any minor cabinet/driver resonance which shouldn't be there compared to their reference speaker. These are 7200.2 competitors, price-wise. They also accept up to 24/192 among other things.

Would it be such a huge R&D effort to offer e.g. MRC to two-channel DSP/Audio Core owners, for example? Meridian already have the MRC tech developed, and already have the expertise to implement it in more complex multichannel setup in the 861, so why not just implement it and sell it as an upgrade, to be made standard in all new DSPs/Audio Cores?

To my mind, to a consumer who doesn't know as much about either brand, if B&O can state in their literature 'Perfect sound, individually tuned to your room right in the speakers' and Meridian can't, who do you think a lot of people will go with? Aren't Linn doing RC in their actives now too? It just feels like M had a lead, and expertise here, and then just let it go at some point. Such a shame.

Also, to return to an earlier point, ALL the B&O stuff is beautifully designed as a statement piece (whether you like that style or not), heck even the 'bits that don't matter' like their little WiFi adapters to the sound system look just dandy, and not like a piece of office gear. Some of them have Red Dot design awards.

I'm not saying any of this to have a dig, but because I genuinely love Meridian gear and I'd also love them to really thrive and make the most of what they already have, while continuing to innovate new approaches.

Ref Toms question as to why RAAT. I want to sync non Meridian kit in other zones. Meridian don’t make Bluesound Pulse type kit.
Plenty of people may wish to add Meridian seamlessly to other brands in other rooms and Sync them in ROON.
By making their equipment flexible in this way and even selling the upgrade to those owners interested in it they remove obstacles and objections. This should generate more sales and plenty of good will, which leads to more sales.
Chris

Just to clarify, for VERY GOOD technical reasons, Roon won't sync different "families" of streaming, so Meridian Sooloos gear can't be zone linked with RAAT or Squeezebox devices, etc.

But it would all work if M adopted RAAT...

It would work very well.