Hi Spinaltap,

I went down the Sonore/SOtM/NUC rabbit hole, and did get excellent sound quality. In fact it was as good as the dCS - but, lots of boxes, cables and widgets ... was more IT than music! The dCS was excellent and in one handy elegant box.

I then took a punt on the Linn Klimax Renew and was nicely satisfied ...but, there is something scrummy about the Audionote DAC mid-range that I missed.

I am REALLY very curious to compare the Meridian and the dCS, and quietly hopeful that the Meridian may be as good.

My DAC can only handle up to 9624 but the 210 downsamples very nicely and transparently, excellent.

I believe that Meridian are doing well with their in wall speakers. It is a shame that their cutting edge equipment appears to have been left behind. I bought into the Naim DVD5 and AV2 when they came out and was very enthusiastic, but the standards just move too fast and I don't think Naim got their investment back ... or at least not sufficiently.

I think Meridian are trying to be cute by producing boxes that allow modern boxes to interface with the 861 etc. The sound quality from the 210 had me toying with picking up some more Meridian AV kit, but ultimately it looks complex so I suspect I will demure.

M