Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems G68 tested

Interesting: Audio Science Review Meridian G68ADV: were AV Processor Ever Good?.

Wonder if he bothered listening to it and if he has any clue what it should sound like?
I would not call this a test, one thing is right, M would be able to do better today using newer chipsets...

Thanks for sharing, but this test is a joke.
Sound wise the G68 is far better than any Japanese processors.
Form their point of view, the Oppo205 would be a better DAC than 818.3 btw.

Albert, it is a *test*, for that is what AudioScience review does. Mid band distortion down 100dB, near-18 bit accuracy, very good S/N, all add to state of the art performance for its day, and bloody good even by today's standards.

If there is a joke here, I fail to see the humour.

Now, if you want a 7 page data-free article offering a GESR's subjective opinion of the G68 - liberally sprinkled with adjectives and cliched references to wine tasting and whisky flavours - then the AudioScienceReview site is not the place to visit.

BTW, GESR = Golden Eared Subjective Reviewer, pronounced 'guesser'.

I do not wish to get involved in a discussion on subjective opinions, but am always willing to listen. Do you have any data based rigorous level matched blind tests showing that the 818 is 'better' than, say, the Oppo?

Jedburgh, I disagree. It is indeed a test of the electronics. I find such information to be very useful in general and, especially, when making buying decisions. You, and others, may be looking for something else which is fine.

Can the reviewer name which modern processor? They have never reviewed Theta or Trinnov from what I see.
A friend sold his old Lexicon MC10 and waiting for the upcoming JBL SDP55 processor, I lent him my spare G68J as backup. Out of blue he was blowed away by the G68, the sound was just way much musical than the Lexicon, he ended up sacrificing the ceiling channels and bought a used 861.4.

But the DATA tells suggests the other way, so you are right ASR is not for me.

There is no doubt that the DAC chips of today are superior to the G68 series give the right applikation.

It would be very interesting to get some feedback on how the digital side fairs and potentially also the ADC's. I did put the question to Amir on the ASR web site forum but have not seen any reply so far. Most recent posts are rather OT.

I use my G68ADV as a digital switch and HT decoder. All digital in and all digital 5.1 SPDIF out. Not many alternatives to such setup in the market so it would be interesting to see if the G68 is completely outdated compared to newer HW.

I'm looking at getting a HD621 to add HD digital input to the G68 but such unit can in reality replace my entire G68 as I have my volume controls after the DAC's, later in the chain.

Do any of you know if the HD621 can decode any of the newer surround formats or is it limited to the same as the last G68 FW? I will feed it from a Oppo 103D DVD.

Kind regards and happy Easter
//Rob

Hi Rob

The HD621 does no decoding of any format. It's job is to take LPCM (which your player has already decoded) and upsample it for the processor which is next in the chain.

Cheers

George

I’ve recently stumbled onto the Audio forum in question.

I too also find it quite interesting and surprising. For example brands such as Mytek (Brooklyn and Liberty) have also had modest test reviews although we know online elsewhere that these have had very favourable reviews. I certainly enjoyed my Brooklyn!

Overall if you look at the review inventory, AV pres and AV amps tend to fair badly against stand alone 2ch DAC and DAC/pres.

From what I can see the majority of kit under test comes from enthusiasts who loan to Amir, so perhaps it is not surprising that high end gear is not so common.

I don’t quite understand how the testing is done and can’t say it’s right however the reviewer openly shares his credentials in his signature.

Topping DACs seem to be fair well in terms of bench performance vs cost.

Thank you for quick answers

Mr Meridian, I guess that the decoding in the Oppo would be as good if not better compared to the G68. Then it is PCM out over HDMI from the Oppo into the HD621. The Oppo can do PCM 192kHz, can the HD621 handle that? No real reason but just as it is there. 96kHz should be fine with the HD621.

Sometimes I get 48X in the display on the G68. Then I switch input and when I go back it often says 48K. Why is that and what are the implications if any?

How does the ADC in the G68 fair compared to newer HW like Topping and alike? I use it for playing vinyl.

Alastair, I agree and do use a Topping DX7s together with my small Genelecs in the office. No doubt the Topping DAC is better and with better details compared to the G68 DAC. Topping seem to be among the better HW in the market at this time.

In the G68 system I output 5.1 SPDIF 48kHz to a BSS DSP crossover with digital input cards and use the BSS DAC's (one for each channel/speaker driver in a 3 way active 5.1 system = 17 channels in all) which is reasonable modern comp to the G68 I guess.

Kind regards
//Rob

Yes, the HD621 accepts up to 192kHz in, and outputs 96kHz.

To my mind it's not a very fair test test taking a c.15 year old piece of electronic equipment and comparing it to new, or nearly new gear, including the inherent assumption it's performing to spec, as it did out of the factory, after all that time. Not a fair conclusion either if, as stated, the purpose was to find out whether the high-end ever made a good processor - why not test a G65, or 861v8, rather than concluding 'we will never know' whether Meridian could have done any better with newer DAC ICs? Why not even measure an 861v4, which at least was Meridian's state of the art back at that time, not their mid-range component? Outside Meridian, why not measure something like a Trinnov Altitude 32, possibly today's state of the art?

The above notwithstanding I can't help wondering whether the whole premise is perhaps a bit flawed? Can how 'good' a processor is really be evaluated just in terms of measuring 2-channel DAC output, when the whole point of a processor is to process, i.e. change, the sound? Past a certain point, doesn't the quality of the processing algorithms and how well things like, e.g., digital attenuation to compensate for speaker distances, headroom required for different processing modes (e.g. Trifield), bass management, proprietary decoding of different audio codecs, filters, RC, etc., are implemented define to a greater degree how a processor actually sounds? Might they account for effects far bigger than small differences in measured 2-channel DAC performance? Also the extra processing circuitry in a multichannel unit is inherently 'noisy' - iirc, Richard Hollinshead once mentioned that the 861v8 would sound the same as an 818v2 if one removed all the multichannel processing circuits, etc.


Psychoacoustics places doubt upon whether blind testing is a valid approach to evaluating audio performance. Bob has talked about this -

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/art...s-bob-stuart-talks-with-robert-harley-1/

I also find it an interesting article in terms of how much value should be placed on measurements vs. perceived audio quality.