Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Meridian 210 Streamer - Preview

Bruce,

I'd want LAN as well as WiFi, RAAT over Sooloos, I'm indifferent to Airplay 2 etc but can see that without these the 210 makes no sense, MQA particularly as this is a streamer and that's how most MQA is delivered.

I don't know why they ditched the form factor that fitted inside the in-wall DSPs. People tell me that the 218 is small enough to hide but if I were looking to put in-ceiling DSPs in my house I'd like the 210 to fit inside them as the MS200 does rather than having to have a rack somewhere. It's just a more elegant solution.

Do I get the sense the 210 is still so much work-in-progress there's still time to make changes?

Hi Bruce

Half the family is on Android, and the other half Apple, but they use Bluetooth (as do we Android users) so Airplay is completely irrelevant to us. Guests use Bluetooth to portable speakers here.

I'd want Spotify Connect, I've heard how good dCS can make a 320k stream sound, and I'd like Meridian to do the same.

I'd also want Roon compatibility, it would be really remiss if it was missing that crucial feature when most other manufacturers are onboard.

LAN and WIFi connectivity, and proper Coax SPDIF out, not just SpeakerLink.

With all of the above included, I think £750 would be the absolute maximum they could ask, and TBH my own feeling is that such a spec isn't actually worth more than £450.

Cheers
George

My concern, especially for the likely cost, is not what it supports now, but what it will support in couple of years time.

It's a fast moving sector and unfortunately, I don't honestly see Meridian being able to keep up making it soon obsolete.

Now, if Meridian made a Prime sized case with open source internals and quality hardware that could be user updated similar to Pi, then, depending on price, that would be a different story. But I honestly cannot see that happening, in the same way that whilst I think it would be a good move, I cannot see them opening up Sooloos - but could see it supporting Raat which would be a good thing. But like some of the other comments, its rumour.

I think that despite HQ possibly seeing Roon as a flash-in-the-pan back in the post-divorce 2014+ I would not be surprised if their views have now changed. The reality is that the Roon vision and mission has been very successful now. The innovative work that Roon did with MQA decode and preserve the render suggests a good relationship exists.

A large number of the brands that M have to compete with in this fast moving scene are supporting RAAT.
Roon is the leader in this field on so many fronts. It would make good sense.

What I don’t know is what RAAT would bring to M over and above the Sooloos protocol.

If everything is still rate and format limited as it is today then not much.

How or whether M’s architecture could handle more I don’t know.

Could RAAT be retrofitted to other units like the 8x8 range ?

It seems clear that M isn’t and probably shouldn’t do anything more with Sooloos (IMHO)

Agreed and more than a tad disappointing.

It makes sense to me that it doesn't necessarily have to support Sooloos. The 218 is for that.

If those specs are correct, it looks like the 210 can be used as an extender for the 218. Want Sooloos, or analogue in, or digital in (SPDIF/Toslink), or SL in: get a 218. Just want Roon and Airplay or Roon and bluetooth: get a 210. Want Sooloos and Bluetooth: get both.

The only way of avoiding buying both in some circumstances is to make a box which is twice as powerful, probably twice as big, and twice as expensive.

If the 210 is really Roon Ready and outputs 192 and DSD to SL, the 818v3 will accept that and we are most of the way to a Roon-enabled 818v4. But according to Sooloos publicity, a built-in card sounds better than going through an unclocked PCM interface.

This is all speculation and I'm very curious what the 210 ends up being able to do, if it ever arrives.

Do you think that the Sooloos client needs more power than the Roon client? Presumably it will only play one source at a time.

Cheers
Tom

It’s a stereo device, sure it will play only one source at a time!

Or is that not what you mean?

Partially - what I was really getting at is, is it likely that it would have enough processing power to support Roon but not Sooloos?

Cheers
Tom

I don’t believe any decision to support Roon over Sooloos would be down to hardware performance, more a business decision.

That would be my thought too although would be tough to justify to Sooloos customers if Roon appeared on both devices but Sooloos only on one.

Hi Bruce, for me to consider buying a 210, it would need to do three things:

1. Full comms control of my 818v3 (I think that this is probably a given).
2. RAAT endpoint, accepting at least 192k PCM and DSD64 (176k DoP).
3. Pass >96k PCM and 176k DoP over SpeakerLink output (to my 818v3).

A 4th feature, MQA decoding and the ability to pass this to my 5200SEs, might make me consider buying a second, replacing my 218. (Though if/when the SEs get the ability to render decoded MQA streams, this would not be necessary.)

I would of course prefer a RAAT card for the 818, but architecturally, I'm not sure that 176/192k (inc. DoP) could be transported from an "ID42" to the main input card (which is where all of the 176/192k inputs are currently, and where MQA decoding (and I suspect DSD transcoding) takes place).

Ultimately though, I get the feeling that the 210 is not for "us" on this forum, but a product to sate trophy wives and their kids and friends who want to stream from iDevices in the context of a whole house installation. (I'm not intending to be pejorative or misogynistic here, but I wanted a blunt way to describe this.)