Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Reflections on Meridian

I was getting ready to listen to a CD last night, going through my usual ritual of determining which setting - Stereo, Trifield or Music - sounded best for the particular recording, when it dawned on me how much we take for granted.

It's hard to imagine just how brilliant Bob Stuart and his colleagues at Meridian are - first to understand psychoacoustics, second to figure out how to apply the scientific principals to develop a methodology for taking a two channel analog or digital source, and extract and rearrange the information in a manner which enhances the sense of "being there", and third to design and implement the technology in a 12" x 12" black box (at least for us 500 series owners) with six or eight buttons, so all we have to do is press Source, Preset, Play and Volume, and then sit back and enjoy it.

I'm for one am willing to cut them a little slack if the remote is a little quirky.

music logic is my favorite for everything.

levytv

let me join in the lovefest. I think Meridian and the people involved with it are not only technically impressive but nice as well. Thats something to be proud of.

- Jerry

It's not entirely a lovefest. I still am not crazy about their speakers!

"It's not entirely a lovefest. I still am not crazy about their speakers!"

Why?

speakers are one of those religious things that are the ultimate in subjective opinions.

personally, i adore my Meridian speakers. the 6Ks are nothing short of astounding in my book. the 5Ks are damn nice, but i can see why people might prefer other speaker/amp combos in the 5K's price range. never listened to the 8Ks - i just can't imagine they're 2 to 3 times better than the 6Ks.

i didn't much like martin logan or hale or wilson for that matter. but i was a big b&w fan. i know plenty of folks who adore ML and hate B&W.

good thing there're a lot of speaker companies out there :-) :-)

buy and listen to what you like. no way the world is ever going to agree on one best speaker!

sab

Once you have heard poor imaging speakers like the B+W Nautilus 800 Signature you might think different of Meridian speakers . The 8Ks were quite nice in Frankfurt. However, Meridians are not on my own list because of their price tag and I do know/have heard better for less money.

Andreas

The Meridian 8000s are GREAT speakers- but they are priced to match. If one has listened to a few different speakers and decides they prefer the Meridian speakers- you cant fault that person.

- Jerry

From a theoretical standpoint, I believe Meridian has the right approach with keeping the DAC and amplifers as close as possible to the speakers.

As a practical matter, however, by making the DACs internal, the cost to upgrade is increased. The cost to upgrade even the lowly DSP5000 to 24-bit status is $1595 per pair. Owners incurred similar costs when they upgraded to 20-bit status a couple of years ago, so they get tagged twice. And of course you need to do the upgrade if you want to take advantage of 568 upsampling. So instead of just buying a 568, you have to buy a 568, plus upgrade your speakers, and if you want three channel upsampling (and who doesn't - heck we're complaining there's not upsampling for the rears due to inadequate DSP horsepower), you have to upgrade your center channel as well at another $795 a pop. So to take advantage of one of the primary benefits of the 568, you have to cough up $2390 on top of the $5995 you spent on the 568. Meanwhile, the 24-bit DACs in your 568 sit idle. If you had analog amps and speakers, no additional cost would be involved.

That aside, each manufacture voices its speakers differently. Listen to twenty speakers and none sound the same. I'd much rather audition them and find one that suits me. I find the Meridian forward, certainly dynamic, but forward; I prefer something a little more laid back. To each his own.

Meridian extols the virtue of a single digital cable carrying the signal instead of a "rat's nest" of electically dissimilar cables, and in its literature makes fun of audiophles who use cables as tone controls. Did you ever notice that Meridian uses Transparent digital cables at its demonstrations at the major shows. I wonder why they don't use the stock cable they include with their products in the demonstations. Perhaps they think that cables do make a diference.

So for me, it's not entirely a lovefest. I am quite enamored of their electronic though. :-)

i agree that the upgrade thing can be annoying, but i'd like to make three observations about it:

(1) it's not like you MUST upgrade. the system won't sound worse than it did if you choose not to upgrade.

(2) if you had to upgrade a high-quality outboard DAC that of course wouldn't be free.

(3) IME, you can usually work with your dealer to get a better price on the upgrades than MSRP.

my two pennies fwiw.

sab

"(1) it's not like you MUST upgrade. the system won't sound worse than it did if you choose not to upgrade."

You're quite right. You don't have to upgrade anything. You can keep your 561 or 565 and your 18-bit or upgraded 20-bit speakers. However, if you do upgrade to a 568, you need to upgrade your Meridian DSP speakers to 24-bit capability to take advantage of the 96kHz/24-bit processing and upsampling features of the 568. If you upgrade to a 568 without upgrading your DSP speakers, you will not derive the primary benefits of the 568, in which case why upgrade?

"(2) if you had to upgrade a high-quality outboard DAC that of course wouldn't be free."

If you already have analog amplifiers and speakers and upgrade to a 568, it has 96kHz/24-bit DACs built in, so no further purchase is necessary. The 568 is a brilliant piece of audio equipment. Perhaps there ought to be a 568A and a 568D. The 568A would contain the internal DACs for those using analog amplifiers and speakers; the 568D could omit them at some cost savings which could be applied toward upgrading your DSP speakers.

"(3) IME, you can usually work with your dealer to get a better price on the upgrades than MSRP."

My understanding is that many dealers will upgrade at cost. My further understanding is that there is not much mark-up on upgrades. However, having never upgraded (other that EEPROM upgrades) any of my eight Meridian components, I'll let others who have share their experience. I hope the discounts are significant as I would like to upgrade my 506.18 to a 506.24. If someone knows what the mark-up is, I would be especially interested so I'll be in the best position to negotiate with my dealer.

Please understand, I am not Meridian bashing; I am merely pointing out that integrating the DACs in the speakers has significant economic consequences when upgrading. If in doubt of my intentions, read the first post where I go ga-ga over Meridian stuff.

Cheers.

[This message has been edited by Frank (edited 07-16-2001).]

What about 192 kHz support for the DSP speakers? How much will THAT cost? How will the potential increased jitter through the digital cable be handled? How would SACD signals be handled by DSP speakers without converting (downgrading) them to 96 kHz at the processor end? What if Meridian keeps dragging its feet on SACD support? Does that mean we have to buy a complete parallel high-end system from source to speaker to enjoy the full potential of SACD?

My new house construction should be completed within the next couple of months and I am seriously considering Meridian gear for both my HT room (568, 596, 558) and stereo hall (588 or 598). There is no way however that I would buy any DSP speakers. I just refuse to be held hostage by them.