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

Indeed, no good having wireless communication in a metal case!
The glass allows the Wi-Fi and Blutooth signals through.

For legacy Meridian system owners the 210 has RCA coaxial digital output, and we can supply a custom made 210 SpeakerLink out to DIN Comms cable for legacy system connection.

This Comms cable is required for Meridian system volume control from your telephone volume buttons while streaming.

Rick

Meridian’s convoluted solution to using AirPlay on the 210...
If you already have a 218, for example, save yourself £700 in buying Yamaha’s offering instead.

Oh dear, just because it can technically be done doesn’t make it a good solution

Is Airplay even relevant ?

I only use iPhones and iPads and if I wanted to link to a 210 I would use Bluetooth direct to it. Why faff with another conversion route ?

Bluetooth is brand agnostic and Airplay isn't.

Guests that arrive and want to connect their phone can do so using BT from any brand of phone.

What am I missing here ?

Nick

Airplay can be useful, when you stream to SkyQ from Roon it uses Airplay doesn’t it?
As for the 210 a very late incomplete product which holds little appeal for me.
YMMV

I wholeheartedly agree with you.

AirPlay allows the following (for non Roon users)...

Those that have a large iTunes music library resident elsewhere in the house, but only have small storage capacity on their iPhone/iPad, can utilise Apple Remote on their iOS device to access/stream/play their entire music library (in addition to accessing Apple Music playback).

Yes... It does but that is because SKYQ had it and Roon can use it. The 210 doesn't have it but Roon can use RAAT... in that scenario.

My point isn't whether there is use for Airplay in general, but, more so with the 210.

I can see that scenario although have zero sympathy for it iTunes is truly awful and they should be on Roon anyway using RAAT.

I agree with you both that it is an incomplete feature set. I was just wondering how it might stream to a Prime headphone setup to get the max out of that. But I cannot. The SPDIF/SpeakerLink will be limited to 96 and there is no USB to feed the Prime with up to 192.

Airplay will play lossless from Apple units, bluetooth is compressed.

They should have had casting on the 210, allowing you to cast from Soundcloud etc.

Wasn't there an USB and RAAT is not limited to 96kHz?

Anyways I find MQA decoder more interesting in the case of a Meridian setup then you can do the full unfold origami. I don't have time to deal with non-MQA content nowadays I'm glad there is Tidal Masters with MQA.

Plus, if AirPlay had been an integral feature of the 210, one could point iTunes to the music library that hung off the 210’s connected USB HDD.

But I bet that we will see this streamer hardware appearing in more products soon. So being able to "retrofit" Airplay in an over-the-air update to the app/fw would benefit more coming streaming products/updates. Anyways, makes sense from a financial standpoint to reuse this piece of engineering. Like Naim does with their streaming hardware and Mu-So 2 range etc...

I have one on order so I might play with it for a bit. Will be used for an F80 zone (yes with ifi purifiers as optical converters and a reviver..).