Completely agree. I feel a lot of peoples viewing behaviour has changed (towards Netflix etc) as well as potentially listening to a lot more variety of music as streaming has become mainstream and so I can understand a focus going back towards 2 channel that can be adapted to more if needed. Personally I've gone back from a 7.1 system to 2 channel and actually enjoy it a lot more day to day.

That said I do think its hard to get a read from Meridian on where things are with them because they say so little... are the speakers so good they don't need further tweaking (I think so)? is their business model now entirely focused elsewhere (custom installations, cars etc)? Where are they trying to go with the brand, new products etc?

What does appear clear is that they have kind of stopped with innovation around the surround processor stuff which is a shame because it would be nice if all the units had upgrades around HDMI, MQA etc. Its funny I see job adverts for the Meridian marketing department and yet beyond a few videos almost no communication comes from then on anything... I think it's a bit of a shame.

Meridian 218, 5200SE, Auralic Aries G1, Panasonic DP-UB9000