Whilst there are people on here using 218 with a Meridian processor, I suspect most are using DSP loudspeakers, so they probably aren’t doing what you want to do in your analogue system.

If you want to hear full MQA with minimum interference in the signal path, then the 218 would have to act as a preamp and feed it’s analogue outputs directly into your power amp.

If you can settle for just the first MQA unfold, then I THINK if you just use the 218 as a network endpoint and connect the digital output to an input on your G61R, then you would get an MQA first unfold digital signal sent for decoding by the G61R DAC . You could feed the 218 analogue outs at fixed volume into an analogue input on the G61R, but obviously the MQA decoded analogue signal will go through a further analogue to digital to analogue process before emerging from the G61R to your power amp. You need Meridian Comms too though really. I actually fed an MS200 into a G61R using a Speakerlink to SPDIF+C5 comms converter built for me by Syles.

I’m now trying to think about the 218 between the G61R and your power amp. If you connect the digital out for l/r front channels from the G61R into the digital input of the 218, with the 218 then converting to analogue and feeding your power amp, I’m trying to work out how you match the gain with the channels that the G61R is acting as preamp for, plus get comes up and running. It’s just making my head hurt at the moment.

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