Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Upgrade paths - power supply, Shunyata cables

I was informed by another group member that using Shunyata mains cables (Alpha NR minumum) was on par with the sonic upgrade of going from normal to SE speakers.
I now see folks spending small fortunes on power supply upgrades for their 210/218s. Would a 218 with linear power be on par with an 818v3 for example?
Are the sonic benefits of using shunyata or power supply upgrades really that significant?
Not being critical, genuinely interested to see whether its worth pursuing

Personally, I don’t believe a 218 will be on the same playing field as an 8XX - irrespective of whatever modifications are inflicted on a 218.

Even so, ‘upgrading’ a 218’s mains cable might possibly improve matters, such as RS YellO, PowerKord or, SuperKord - plus IEC to Cloverleaf adapter for the 218. These are offered on sale or return basis.

Other than the RS YellO cables, would you really want to spend as much, or more, than the price of a 218?

There are many here that really enjoy the benefits of the Shunyata products. As with most things in audio, they need to be auditioned in your system to see if it works in your system or not. As for upgrading the 218, I am sure upgrading the power supply can close the gap with the 818 a bit but, it will never bring it on par with the 818. JMO.

I would have to agree with the comments above. Shunyata make fantastic cables, however it makes sense to try before you buy. The sweet spot for these appears to be the Alpha NR, although the Delta NR is a damn good cable too.

On the 818 vs 218, again I would have to agree. The 818v2 (and especially v3) does more than just add an LPS and I'd be surprised if you could get close to its performance with a 218. If you're going down this road, I'd be inclined to consider a second-hand 818 as I don't think they're that expensive compared to buying new.

Interesting to hear why, what makes an 818 better, what’s in there?

When you put AC in, it converts it to DC to run the circuits. Why would you spend so much money sending AC to a £3 SMPS? Top end servers, which appear to be the current top of the pile SQ wise, Pink Faun, Taiko, Antipodes etc focus hugely on PSs, grounding etc (plus software). They are using hybrid power supplies usw. Why not concentrate on what’s going into the circuits, get an excellent DC power supply, put it straight in? The power supplies aren’t that fussy about which AC cable is used, the magic happens inside, low drop regulators etc. It’s the DC that the circuits use that counts.

I’d imagine it’s much the same with DSP speakers, the magic happens inside, the regulation, grounding etc. Well that’s what Bob Stuart said when asked.

I can confirm that the 218 with a Shunyata Alpha NR power cord sounds very good, and would be happy to compare with any 818 I am gifted. PM for shipping address.

I would also love to know what makes the difference, but I suspect they wouldn't tell us or would answer 'everything'!

Each time I've tried a Meridian product that is sold as an improvement on what ran before, I've been overwhelmed by the difference. In theory my 818 has little to do, it takes a streamed music signal and turns it into balanced SPDIF, yet it sounds better than any other output device I've tried on Meridian speakers. The 818v3 showed no on-paper difference in the digital section (other than accepting MQA content), yet it was in another league from my v2 (whether playing MQA or not).

I haven't heard a 218 with a LPS, but I heard 861v6 with SPS and with LPS,the improvement on SQ was huge, but still not even close to an 818.3 IMO.

PS I recently auditioned the Soundaware D300ref (Roon certificated) with my 7200SE using a custom AES2RJ45 cable, it sounded very nice, clearly better than 861v8/ID40, I haven't compared with 818.3 back to back at the same room, but according to my memory the dynamic and noise level are close, but the 818.3 still sounded more musical, and the bass of 818.3 was more "elastic".

I use Quiescent power conditioning, power cables and other devices to tackle the evils if RFI, EMI and vibration and it all works very well. Imagery has much better focus, lives in space free of the speakers and the sound is more dynamic. Bass, in particular, is more extended and better defined. But I don't think anything would make a 218 sound the same as an 818.

800 pounds for a 218, 8000 pounds for an 818v3, they must sound different or M will cease trading.

While it might be possible to bring a 218 up to a level approaching an 818v3 when playing a streamed or digital source into DSP speakers, I doubt that a 218 could match the remarkable analogue-to-digital and digital-to-analogue capabilities of the 818v3.

Alternatively, it might be revealing to see how much an 818v3 could be improved with these sorts of investment in exotic power cables and so forth and then doing a comparison with a similarly upgraded 218.

As others have said the 818v2 => 818v3 upgrade was, for me, significant and unmissable regardless of whether the source was analogue, digital or MQA.

Absolutely, no doubt about the credentials on the analogue side but if you’re just using it as an endpoint...

Regarding exotic cables, I’ll repeat, you’re putting AC into something which converts it to DC. The recent trend is to pay attention to the quality of the DC, what that does to the circuits, the clocks etc. There are many ways to improve the DC. Low drop regulators and so on which dramatically improve the ripple in a supply. Exotic cables may do some of that but I’d respectfully suggest that it’s not a cost effective measure compared to supplying the circuits with quality DC, which can be fairly easily be done.

It’s a genuine question, on the streaming side, what has the 818 actually got that the 218 hasn’t? Maybe they put an SMPS in it so it didn’t sounds as good as an 818, so it wouldn’t eat into sales. Why wouldn’t they supply it with a DC socket? We’ll probably never know. Unless there something else in there, I can’t see any reason why a 218 couldn’t sound better than an 818 as an endpoint give a state of the art power supply.