Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems New Product - Meridian Audio Ellipse

I have just returned from Sevenoaks in Reading (Thanks Richard) after a very long lunch break to listen to this and so it’s quite fresh in the mind.

Though I haven’t yet bought one I am definitely going to do so in the next month or so once house renovations allow me a room to put it in.

I had wanted to listen to my F80 as a reference point this morning but that appears to have succumbed to the fuse issue, that being said it hasn’t been that long since I last heard it.

Meridian have pretty much taken the F80 and tipped it backwards, placing the drivers on what would be bottom. The old dimensions are very close (F80 - 408 x 230 x 185 vs Ellipse 410 x 219 x 163) so 2 cm wider, 1cm deeper and 2cm shorter if you were to place them side by side in the F80 stance. With this in mind it allows you to make a very clear comparison between what Meridian have achieved since the F80 and packing it all in to the same sized chassis is to my eyes a very subtle nod to this.

Out of the box settings wise it sounds superb but leaps up significantly in the Bass / Width(I think thats what it is called) mode set to Medium. If you were in any way impressed with the F80 you will be extremely impressed with the Ellipse. The soundstage pushes moves 5 feet out to the left and right and the bass extension drops down impressively low given it’s size.

Clearly it’s not going to go toe to toe with it’s bigger cousins in the scale department but on the detail and vocals it’s really really impressive.

Volume wise it goes loud and it’s only when it’s at levels that you wouldn’t sustain for long does it start to become less composed.

I listened to:

London Grammar - Hey Now (Does really well with the bass drop and the decay/detail on the opening bars is impressive)
Rag and Bone Man - Skin (State of the Ark Studios Live). This can be found as a video on Tidal and also on YouTube though the Tidal version is much better. The vocals on this are huge and on the Ellipse sounds amazing with a huge sound stage.
Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms - Really impressive and tons of detail.
Freya Ridings - Lost Without You - Really impressive, good bass and alot of detail on the pianos. I noticed a mis note partway through which I haven’t noticed before and just had to re listen to this on my Flare headphones and sure enough there it is.
Joe Bonamassa - Blues Deluxe - Guitars sound amazing and Joes vocals are front, centre and prominent, sounds great!
Deadmau5 - The Veldt - Wasn’t expecting much from this owing to the bass heavy content but what a surprise.

Essentially if you have an F80 and were curious, you can do absolutely no wrong in trading up, it’s a huge leap in performance. If you haven’t got an F80 but wanted a system that is both very pleasing to eye and would blend in to any room plus give you the impression you were listening to a much bigger system it’s a no brainer.

I bought my son a Denon CEOL N10 which is a little lifestyle system along with some Wharfdale speakers that probably cost around the £600 mark to put together but is a much larger system and more difficult to accomodate. This completely knocks the spots off it and at a fraction of the footprint. Granted the price differential but I actually think it is worth it.