Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems New to me Meridian M2s & 101 Preamp

I have been hankering after a pair of M2s and have always loved the look of the 100 series components. A pair came up with a 101 last week so I jumped at them.

Condition wise they are not too bad. Cabinets are damaged, but the drive units (despite some paint splatter) look good - and crucially they seem to be in good health. My intention is to refurbish them - new veneer on the cabinets, possibly a re-cap.

Bizarrely the 101 has been painted in silver Hammerite(!) but as it was effectively free with the M2s...

M2-1

M2-2

M2-3

M2-4

The differing silver/black tweeter plates are puzzling. The serial numbers say that these are a matched pair. Perhaps it just relates to a component change over in production.

The 101 was described as a 101B but I'm not convinced it is. Can anyone tell me what I have from this pic?

IMG_4772

Hi,

Looks to be a 101, not the "B"

Regards I

That was my thinking.
I've seen several comments to the effect that the original 101 is a 'better' sounding preamp than the later 101B. No idea if this is 'true'.
I was planning on re-capping the 101 but looking at its condition I think I will leave alone. I will attempt to get the case looking presentable though.

Hi,

I refrain from commenting on "better sounding", but having used M2's with both 101 and 101B, I preferred the 101B running them in balanced mode.

Regards I

After a bit of listening I am finding these to have a very strident and unattractive treble quality.
The treble seems very hard and sibilant.

Is this a characteristic of these M2s?

Or something that I can work to improve?

I am using them with the supplied 101 and a G06.2 CD player.

Mine (owned since new and well cared for) do not sound strident. Every time I listen to them I am still hugely impressed by the quality of sound from such a modestly sized box - and they are 40 years old!

Sounds like the M2's may need a service and capacitor refresh!

Feel free to drop me a PM if you need any assistance.

Cheers,

Steve

Hi

I bought my M2s in around 1984 and eventually replaced them with DSP5000 in 2012. I still miss their smooth detailed sound. I initially had a 101B preamp but moved on to various others. I found these to be a useful improvement over the 101B. The last ones I used, with my M2s, were Meridian 201 Mk1 and then Mk3. I still have both of these in a drawer. I found these to be much better and one gets the benefit of remote control.

Neil

It certainly seems from your comments as though either my preamp, M2s or both are off-colour.
I'm going to start with replacement of the capacitors on the power amplifier boards - I have bought the components.
Also toying with replacing/upgrading the op-amps.

I also have a (non-working) 101B inbound. Principally I bought it for its case but I'm going to see if I can revive it first.

On that point does anyone have any pointers to parts refresh/upgrade for the 101B?

I have done nothing to my M2s since I bought them, but I feel I must point out that I am not currently feeding them from my 101 as a preamp - I am using a rather new Pioneer device. I think, therefore, you are more likely to improve things by tackling your 101 first. The effect of capacitors losing capacitance over many years is generally to turn them into higher pass filters than the designers ever intended (or compensated for) so stridency could well be the result arising from the preamp. Do you have another preamp you could temporarily try?

I do have a Naim NAC92/Flatcap combo.
But I confess I do not know which of the Flatcap outputs to use to connect to the M2s. The manual isn't much help.
Anybody know?

I have just looked at a picture of the back of a NAC92. Basically, it uses DIN sockets and the pin connections are shown on the back of the preamp, but care is needed as the same socket is used in some cases for power supply TO the preamp as well as audio signals (marked Ch1 and Ch2) OUT. In your case the Flatcap supplies power to the preamp so I assume (but do not know) that a separate DIN socket from the one supplying power to the NAC92 will need to be used to get the audio out (see the printing on the preamp rear panel). It should be easy to make up a suitable lead but care would be needed to get the pin assignments correct. Since you are contemplating doing capacitor changes yourself it sounds as if you could manage this (the lead) and in my view it would usefully help to diagnose where your capacitor efforts are best directed.