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.

Meridian