Originally Posted by Ro_67
WRGT MQA I would love to be able to listen to it in its purest form, I was hoping that I could use something like a Bluesound Node 2i or any other MQA supporting streamer and use this as a feed into the 861. Not sure if that would get me the purest MQA experience, I would be interested in knowing how good such a setup would be.
If you were to go multichannel and wanted full MQA decode to your front L/R your options would be 818v3 or something like a 218, which many here use with a little switching setup.

Originally Posted by Ro_67
That way I could get MQA as well as a 5.1 (or possibly 4.1 as I am going to struggle to place a centre).

With regards to my proposed setup, I am planning to have a dropdown screen. I want the placement of the speakers to be either side of a fireplace and the screen will drop down in front of the fireplace. It may well obscure the speakers, but I am planning on having a acoustically transparent screen so even if the 8000s are behind the screen they should still sound good. I am more concerned about having the best placement for 2 channel even if there are compromises on the multi channel.
OK, in my mind, as soon as you mentioned your proposed room layout, and particularly the fact you don’t think you can accommodate a centre channel, this choice became a lot clearer. The centre channel is of such importance in a surround setup - some say, and I agree, the most important channel. Without it, I personally wouldn’t bother with multichannel. Nearly all the benefits I described in my previous post disappear if you can’t use a centre (and a full-size matching one at that). If it were me, knowing how critical this is, I wouldn’t waste money and room space on more speakers, I’d just go with 2x 8KSE/818v3 and be really careful about room/screen/speaker placement.

If there’s a way to accommodate a centre, though, then all bets are back on. With an acoustically transparent screen, you could be uniquely suited to a 3x 8K fronts setup, which not many folks can accommodate. But I guess to do so you’d have to explore using another part of the room other than the fireplace - I’m not sure how fire resistant Meridium is!

HC: 861v4/ID40/LPS, DSP5000, DSP5000VC, DSP3100, SW1600, HD621, Oppo BDP-105, Sony VPL-HW55ES
2-Channel: Oppo BDP-105, TEAC VRDS-7/Trichord Clock 3/PSU, 551, Quad 303, Harbeth Compact 7ES-3, Kimber cables, Russ Andrews mains and supports.
Previous Meridian: 5000C, 5200SL, 7200.2, 6000, 562V.2, 568.2mm, 800v4, 808.2i, 818v2/v3, 861v8, 502