Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming 218 Upgrade

That would defeat the main purpose of the Spring in my opinion. You really want to use the Spring in NOS mode, which means - ideally - upsampling as much as possible prior to the Spring. The 218 will only output 96k...

The Spring doesn’t need a bridge, only if it’s not co-located with the Roon Core. But I’m sure you know that. I fed my Spring with a Matrix Audio X-SPDIF2 USB-to-I2S bridge, upsampling in Roon, and it was a superb combination - my gut feeling was that it was on a par with the 818v3 though I didn’t do a long-term comparison and sold it after 6 months to fund something else.

I was very impressed with the X-SPDIF2, which is built like a tank, and am therefore very interested in the new Matrix Audio element X. It claims to be Roon Ready, but that is jumping the gun a bit as it’s not yet certified. Still not cheap at $3000 list, but a lot cheaper than an 818v3; and it’s an MQA DAC.

Edit: And the element X has a hybrid digital/analogue volume control, so the designers have actually listened to what Bob has been saying.