Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Restaurant at the End of Universe Hitchhikers - Meridian Equipment IC: 861v4, LPSU, ID40, x2 OA13s

Anyone here potentially interested in a well specced 861v4.
Details are:
- owned by myself for around 10 year
- Black finish, in good condition
- the switch mode PSU died around 5 years ago. It was replaced by Meridian themselves with one of their Linear PSUs and given a health check at the same time
- ID40 for Sooloos / Roon streaming, which is how I’ve always used it
- x2 OA13 balanced output cards, so 8 channels in total supported
- x2 Meridian remote controls
- HD621 unit, allowing connection to upto 6 HDMI sources and the decoding of PCM for Dolby True HD (ie audio from a BD disk, but not ATMOS). If you have a universal player, it also facilitates playback of SACDs that are remixed to PCM
- No box

I’m located in Surrey, which is where the unit would need to be collected from, as I’d be very uncomfortable posting.
Configuring an 861 is a bit of art form, eg using the Room correction, which was incredibly useful for me. I’m happy to walk through the process using the Meridian Configuration App with whoever collects/buys.

If interested, please PM me.

PM sent. Locus

Advert updated and now For sale:


For sale, as a bundle, my Meridian 861v4 AV processor, HD621, x2 Meridian remotes, power cables, and a serial/USB connection lead (as shown in the photos)

Looking for around £1850. New, and with this spec, you’d have been looking at around £15k.

Summary:
The 861v4 was Meridian’s leading AV processor when it was new, until replaced by the 861v6 version.
Yes, it’s an AV processor, but it also makes a damn fine streamer, DAC and pre-amp, that works brilliantly in stereo as well as surround modes.
As an AV processor, it supports all formats prior to the arrival of Dolby Atmos, i.e. yes it can happily deal with full bitrate audio from Bluray and also SACDs played in a universal player, as long as they’re converted into PCM.
I’ve owned the unit for around 10 years now, and during that time it’s happily seen off a whole bunch of DACs, e.g. Linn Akurate DS, Gustard A18, Nad M51 and Arcam SA50.
I’m selling as my wife just can’t be bothered to use it (even though it’s just one button to use). So instead, I’m going to be re-focusing on stereo, looking at a DCS Bartok, Esoteric N-05, Meridian Ultradac, Linn DS or similar.
I’m based in Cheam, Surrey. The unit will need to be collected as I’m just not comfortable posting.

Photos taken today and linked to here:
https://postimg.cc/gallery/d77fH7s

Details (if you want to genuinely know):
The 861v4 is a modular unit, allowing different configurations. Mine has the following:
ID40 – Acts as a Roon end point from within the unit, thus avoiding some of the jitter, inherent with other transmission methods such as SPDIF
x2 OA13s – Each of these has 4 XLR/balanced output channels, thus allowing use with upto 7.1 channels of analogue output, which is how I used it. The DACs I believe are AD1852 delta-sigma designs and can process PCM up to 24/96
IA00 – Six analogue stereo inputs – RCA connections
IE42 – Multichannel digital input – this is needed to work with the HD621, which I’ll explain shortly
OE12 – Digital outputs. The unit can also provide 4 SPDIF outputs, for use with surround DSP speakers from Meridian, or if you wanted 4 external DACs
C00 – Comms linkers, for talking to other Meridian components
Note that this 861 suffered from the UIu(apparently common) failure of the switch mode power supply. I had Meridian replace it with a Linear PSU about 5 years ago, during which time they also gave it a health check. Whilst not cheap to replace, the LPSU is supposedly far more reliable and made the unit sound better, so that’s cool.

The 861 does include the usual plethora of AV surround modes, e.g. DD, DTS, Trifield etc. It also includes Meridian’s take on Room correction, which is very “light” touch, i.e. only operates sub 250hz. It works brilliantly, and made my current lounge viable to be used with some fairly juicy speakers.

The HD621 will be included as part of package. The HD621 is a standalone full width box (it’s the smaller box in the pics). That allows connection of up to 6 HDMI (v1.3 I believe) sources, from which it strips the audio, applies jitter correction and then forwards on the audio into the 861 via the IE42 card.

This was Meridian’s solution to how to deal with Bluray audio. A nice side note being that it also meant that if you have a universal player with HDMI output, that can read SACDs and convert DSD to PCM, that you can use the 861 to playback SACD in surround. Have to say that Dark Side of the Moon (SACD) sounded bloody awesome.

With music, say on Streaming using Roon, I used the 861 in “Direct” stereo mode, which avoids most of the audio processing and basically means that you’re using it as a stereo Streamer/DAC/Pre amp.

Perhaps understandably, configuring the above can take a while if you’re not sure.
For whoever buys and collects, I’m happy to both dem the unit and walk through the configuration process, which is done on a Windows laptop. Once you’ve got your head around it, it allows some pretty awesome things, but picking it up from the manual can be a little daunting.

Any questions, please do ask.

That is a nice machine and more importantly a nice spec.

Price reduced to £1800