Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Meridian 568 upgrade to 568.2mm

Hi all,

I was wondering/hoping somebody here can help me out.
We want to upgrade our Meridian 568 to a 568.2MM, I have contacted Chris from meridianlegacy.co.uk, and he told me he still had the parts available back then.
He told me back then through email, back in January and February that I was put on the list, but he was still looking for a transformer to complete the kit.

Anyway a little time later, there is no more response to my emails unfortunately. I'm still waiting for an answer on the current state.

I'm little afraid he perhaps is no longer in business, his website seems also offline/changed to new owner/domain.

Then I found this MrTechGuy New business acquisition blog.
Chris is no longer providing his service, Which is not good for me I think?
Going to MeridianLegacy now forwards me to MrTechGuy.

I have contacted MrTechGuy in the past, about the upgrade question two, and he contacted me back that these upgrade parts where no longer available.

Perhaps somebody else here knows another contact address to get these parts I hope?

I recently got my hands on an Meridian HD621 for 250 Euros, and was planning to use it with an upgraded 568, I hope this unit perhaps also works with our current 568?
As far as I can find, it is at and I hope I am correct on this one, I can at least connect the HD621 using connection like Coaxial to our 568 and it will simply passthrough DD and DTS bitstreams?
However, not having the 568.2MM will not give us the LPCM multi channel audio support, and upsampling.

I hope somebody here can help me out, thanks in advance.

Hi Bokito

The 568.2mm upgrade was originally available around 2003, so you're unlikely to find any upgrade kits after 17 years.

It makes more sense economically to sell your 568 and buy a used 568.2mm.

Chris at Meridian Legacy passed the baton (and his inventory) to his old Meridian colleagues at MrTechGuy, so I'd still get in touch to see what they can do.

Cheers

George

Hi George,

Thanks for your message, I understand. I will contact MrTechGuy then again.

I was hoping perhaps you can tell me if I can still use the HD621 with our current 568 to than just allow it to passthrough DD/DTS audio streams then?
Can we still use it without LPCM audio?
Connect it using Coaxial audio connection for example?

I hope so.
Best regards,

Well I have recently bought an used 568.2MM as an upgrade for our current 568.

I think / hope I got an good deal, bought it for 499 pound.

Anyway, I also asked MrTechGuy, but they haven’t got the upgrade kits. They looked for me in the stock from Chris, which they now have, but it wasnt there.

I will keep our existing 568 for spare parts, in case they are ever needed.
So far there seems a small problem with the display of the 568.8MM which I bought, but according to the seller I can swap my 568 display to the 568.2MM and fix it.

Perhaps somebody here can also confirm the display swap can be done?
Just to be sure, would love some confirmation on this.

I had my 568 upgraded to 568.2mm and nothing on front panel was changed. I am almost certain that this was also the case of the display. It was just the processing side of things along with the mm board. So I think you are good to go.

Ok great, thanks for this answer!

Do you perhaps also know if for example PSU from my 568 will be compatible with my other upgraded 568.2MM?
Would be great to know if I can use other parts aswell for spare.

Anyway, I'm also looking to upgrade the software 568.2MM, the seller showed me pictures that it was still running firmware 2.00

Firmware 2.5b9 I can find to download using archive.org , but isn't there also a 2.5 non beta firmware?
Or is according to the wiki the last official released firmware v2.12 then, this is not entirly clear to me.

And if so, can I then update firmware from 2.0 directly to 2.5b9, or what is recommended?

I hope somebody here can give me some answers, thanks in advance.

Hi,
Firmware should be available from your local dealer or failing that I suggest you contact one of the HH friendly dealers that post on here.
I'll PM you their contact details, I'm sure someone will be able to help you.

You can install either version of the software, it is not dependent on what has previoulsly been loaded.

The important thing is once the firmware has been installed, to re_TYPE the unit to set the base level configuration ... and then of course configure from their to suit your requirements.

Regards,
Carl

Alright that’s great, thanks for your message!

I believe that the transformers are slightly different but the mainboard and one of the DSP cards should be the same, so you should have spares.

The display / front panel is also the same.

With regards to firmware, the last 'official' version was 2.12, although there was the 2.5b9 version that has the 'Trifield bug'!
You can load either from 2.00 providing you re-type but I seem to recollect from other posts on the forum, you may have problems going back from 2.5b9 to 2.12.
That's not to say, the firmware won't load... There were reports that certain presets did not function as expected.

Good luck,

Steve

Thanks for your message.

Then unfortunately the power supply cannot be swaped, but luckiliy other parts can.
I was hoping perhaps the PSU was also compatible.

Anyway what I don't understand is why firmware v2.12 was the highest latest non beta firmare, since there is also an v2.49 firmware available for the 568.2mm.

At least what I found on other posts here on this forum, some users where running v2.49 firmware, which sounds higher than v2.12 firmware to me?

about downgrading back from v2.5b firmware to v2.12 is like you say with risks?
I do found some other topics here on this forum, about users got some problems with DSP modes not working anymore after downgrading, or so it seems to me.

Anyway we dont use Trifield DSP, so perhaps V2.5B will be the best firmware for us to use I think, what do you thin?

It seems to me like there are many improvements to the beta firmware, and also other/beter sound improvements?

Apart from the beta, I’m not aware of anything above v2.12 where did you see references to v2.49?

Regards,
Carl

I'm pretty sure that no PSU swap in my 568 to 568.2mm upgrade.