Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems DSP Speakers - New Firmware - MQA rendering refinements

Well MQA, honestly I prefer the regular transfer. MQA just sound to bright and harsh for my taste, on the other hand I have a live sounding room so.

Either way, nice to have a choice.

Personally I find with MQA it depends completely on the recording; a good deal of MQA material I find smoother and less edgy than the PCM, but I have heard the occasional recording which is overly bright (although these are all known bright recordings to begin with.

Have you noticed any change on regular, non-MQA recordings?

The 192 refers to the rate at which it was encoded. Your 96K speakers will play 96K.

Are we sure of this? The DACs in 7200.2 are capable of at least 192k, and Meridian (from the time of DSP5000/6000) promised firmware upgrades from 96-192. MQA capability would seem like a sensible time to finally make good on this.

Could a PP confirm either way, please, as it would be good to know definitively?

I looked at the data sheet on 7200.2 on Duncan’s info., the DACs are 96K. The Anniversary 8Ks had 96K DACs also. I think I am sure.

Ok so I did some more testing and the problem seems to be with 96kHz material, watched a movie this evening.
Had to restart it 7-8 time before both front speakers played any sound, most of the time only the left or right speaker played.

For me the firmware is bust, probably gonna switch back to previous version waiting for Meridian to fix this version.

A big thank-you to Ian at Martins HiFi for updating my DSP5200SE's over the weekend.

With a 218, there seems to be no appreciable difference in capability; I've tried all sorts of combinations and permutations, but with Roon playing the role of MQA Core Decoder, all I can see on the DSP's display is either PCM or MHR (dependant on the 218's settings).

The 210 we tried on the shop did pass more information through and we saw OFs displayed on MQA material.

Roll-on a 218 firmware update...

I suspect there will be a lot of factors to consider when evaluating this update, but I am really impressed.

I have kept the 'Core' decoding in an 818v3, partly because I managed to get hold of an Innous Zenith Mk II SE and don't want to overstretch it. (There is more to be said on servers, at some point).

I updated my 7200SEs, and then tried a Blossom Dearie MQA album... old, perhaps unfashionable. The sound was just gorgeous, with a naturalism that was stunning... as has been said, MQA seemed to recreate an event, not just a recording... she was there..so were the band.

Wondering whether my hopes for something more had introduced observer bias, I turned to Jennifer Warnes and the 'Famous Blue Raincoat' song, via Qobuz... not good. When such an amazing recording sounds flat and 'papery' in comparison with the MQA album, you have to take your hat off to Mr Stuart.

I get the impression that, as with all Meridian products, the replay of an MQA album or track may be evolving; certainly improving. If there are further uplifts to come from updates to the 818, 218 et al, then there is hope yet.

(And although OT, the LG V40 is amazingly good... if you need an upgrade and travel, waste no time.)

Richard

Love Blossom Dearie, just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s not amazing...

+1

In my experience, usually the opposite.

Richard,

May I enquire where you found MQA version of Famous Blue Raincoat by JW?

SOT Hector

Yes, the datasheets spec the maximum data rate the firmware the DACs are using in the legacy/SL models supports. However, the DAC hardware is capable of more - as far back as the 5K and 6K 24/96 models, the early datasheets promised a 'software' update to 192K. See under input specifications (here and here. It can be seen as late as the 7K spec sheet here. It makes no sense that Meridian de-specced the DACs for the later SL models, it's considerably more likely they just stopped mentioning a software update which was never going to appear!

So it's been assumed for a long time the legacy/SL DAC hardware can handle higher data rates, it's just that pre-SE/MQA Meridian's position was that anything over 96K was unnecessary. Clearly now that has changed, so it would have been this MQA update, if any, which would have been ideally suited to finally make good on the (very) old promise of unlocking 192K.