Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Streaming Sooloos Tidal

Hi Edd,

Just to be clear, Meridian announced, as per your post, that the development freeze was announced in March 2019, not several years ago. You also stated that
This is a copy of an email from a customer in Norway, not an official post from either the factory or you, presumably the factory advised you before advising a customer via a dealer in Norway?

So, I am to believe that after investing thousands of pounds into Sooloos, I receive the recommendation to migrate to Roon from a post from Norway not from the factory directly onto this forum or yourself, as promised earlier?

Speechless
Jon

Edd,

Meridian announced that they would stop further further development of Sooloos in March of 2019, just a little over a year ago.
I like many people here on this forum certainly did not expect new features, i.e. "development", but I certainly expected a company that makes and markets a "luxury" product would not abandon their customers that not too long ago purchased MC200, MD600 and C15's, at well above average expense for a audio product. BMW, Jaeger, Apple and many manufactures of "Hi End" audio products would never treat their customers this way.

I'm very sad to say that this is the sort of thing a company whose principle owner is a Private Equity Firm would do. Their investors always come first, never the other stakeholders.
This is not speculation on my part, I have too much personal experience in these matters than I would like to think about.

Hi Jon,

We received the official email today, but it was published here before we could post it. However, it has been published. The site is not run by Meridian and Mr Tech Guy is a repair/service centre and dealer we have contact with our friends at Meridian as we are both ex-employees however we are independent and here to help you guys.

You are correct March 2019 was the press release, it feels like longer. Apologies I should have checked.

The Meridian factory is running a very slimmed-down staff because of the Social distancing and this will cause delays not an excuse for them but it is what it is.

We are sad that the Tidal feature will no longer be supported however there are options to use your audio endpoints by moving over to Roon. You can still use Sooloos without tidal and the system will deliver the same audio quality as before. Tidal has changed a method of how passwords are handled and the systems cannot be updated anymore.

The issue is complex as we believe the infrastructure to roll out an upgrade is no longer in place so this would require a major infrastructure update as well as producing the Sooloos build.

If you contact your dealer then there are options, we are independent of Meridian and we can only pass on the information we receive.

I am sorry you feel you have been let down that the information was sent from Norway. We will try harder next time but as the press release confirms it was the final release PRESS RELEASE


EDIT: Last software for Sooloos was 24th November 2017 The software (v 2.538) Which is why I thought it was several years since the press release.

Regards
Edd

I understand why some might feel let down by Meridian, but this isn't Edd's fault. He is demonstrably trying to help us by supporting this site and I think the vast majority of us appreciate that the site is here.

[As an aside, I would say that he tried to give Meridian some time to publish an official response and they might have helped him by giving him enough notice to post their official response here before it filtered out]

Just for the record, Meridian hasn't been owned by a "private equity firm" for a very long time. I assume you are referring to Arnon Milchan's MUSE consortium? They sold to Richemont donkey's years ago. Approximately two years ago, Meridian was subject to a management buy-out. CEO John Buchanan is the majority shareholder.

Dear people,
I have also invested a capital to buy a nice installation.
I too am very disappointed in Meridian that they let us down.
I have also experienced very major annoyances for some time.
I too have unsuccessfully asked Meridian for help several times.
I was also advised to transfer to Roon.
So dear fellow Meridians, switch to Roon will cost a bit,
but your installation will play like never before (even better)
And stop annoying yourself.
Conclusion of all this, Sooloos is dead!

Really disappointing although perhaps not surprising news. I can't help but feel let down by Meridian, the lack of support for Sooloos is hard to forgive after the level of investment made in the hardware. I could accept that there would not be new updates but I had hoped that existing functionality would be maintained.

I guess it's now a choice of moving to Roon or accepting the loss of Tidal.

By the time you factor in the cost of subscription to Tidal and Roon plus the investment in new hardware for Roon (I'd prefer a Nucleus if I went down that route) plus a new iPad for control i'm very tempted to stick with Sooloos until such time as Control:PC inevitably stops working.

I can buy at least a couple of albums a month at no increased net cost to my Tidal subscription and I'm lucky enough to have built up a decent library over many years. It's nice to have basically all recorded music at your fingertips with Tidal but it also means my listening habits have changed. I'm much more likely to Swim and jump around tracks compared to sitting down and listening to an album in full and to be honest i've missed giving an album repeated listens and letting it sink in.

Still leaves a very bad taste though, Meridian will no doubt lose customers over this.

Is there an easy way to delete all Tidal albums from my library?

Meridian's position illustrates why I don't like paying large sums for software. If I buy hardware then even when it is life expired (normally manufacturers have to give 5 years' notice) I may well be able to re-purpose it or at least salvage useful bits. Not so with software. Once the supplier chooses to drop support you are finished, even if you have some advanced skills, which I certainly lack, because the code may be unavailable to anyone.

Commercial litigation in Britain is horrendously expensive and class actions to share the cost, for reasons I do not understand, seem to be very rare indeed in English law. But, the USA is different.

Meridian were selling Sooloos kit as recently as 2016 (I bought some), possibly later. It is true that the Tidal problem is only a partial loss of functionality but how about you excellent US customers considering a class action suit against Meridian Americas so that it becomes worth Meridian's while to fix the problem - which I find it hard to believe would be a major programming effort - rather than just turning their backs on you/us?

The Sooloos support issue is no different to Meridian pulling support/service for their other products in recent times. I know from bitter experience regarding G Series (non) support.

At least Mr.TechGuy is offering MC200 owners the ability to modify their devices into a Roon Core for £250 - although he 'is not at liberty' to reveal exactly what the upgrade entails.

We don't know if the replacement electronics offers an Intel solution, or something else.

I appreciate that this would still require existing MC200 owners' spending more than this on buying a suitable end-point and a Roon license, but what other choice do you realistically have?

Hello

When my MC200 gave up the ghost and I switched to Roon it only cost the subscription, nothing else.

I installed the software on an Apple Mac Mini in our home office. It found the FLAC files that I'd saved and all the Meridian endpoints, plus a few other endpoints that I didn't even know were endpoints, and has worked flawlessly ever since.

The interface on a phone or tablet can be set up in a few minutes to look almost like Sooloos although with more and better functionality.

All software develops and moves on eventually becoming unsupported. I urge everyone who is doubting this to try the free download and see for themselves.

Neil

I committed to Sooloos before anyone had ever heard of TIDAL.

When TIDAL was added to Sooloos I saw it as a bonus feature not part of the core offering.

It is TIDAL, not Meridian, who have made the change ceasing the functionality.

My Sooloos system continues to work perfectly in line with the specification for which it was purchased.

If one is disappointed with the loss of TIDAL via Sooloos, perhaps one should take issue with TIDAL who are responsible for that loss?

Hi Gianni

I've never had Sooloos myself, but in light of the comments here, did look up the relevant dates for Meridian Sooloos and Tidal. There are Meridian Sooloos reviews from 2009, five years before Tidal was launched. I agree with you... Meridian are being beaten for loss of a bonus feature that Tidal themselves have taken away.

Cheers

George