Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems The new Clean Debate about Clean power supplies

Me too -- particularly among things that are going to be subtle, that you probably have to 'listen for'. I'm skeptical of sense memory under these conditions -- too many variables for our minds to play with and affect judgement. I'm even more skeptical of claims that the sound is 'transformed' by this or that tweak. As has been pointed out, Bob Stuart and the folks @ M aren't dummies; they'd spend the extra $50 or whatever and go through the necessary approvals. C'mon, who else spends the time to write their own code?

Having said that, as a G68 owner, I'd love to A/B modded vs. stock.

Reminds me of the Waltons TV show when everyone says Good Night and the light goes out at the end of the show.

And to all a great weekend!

It's a nice weather day here in New England.

Product safety approvals on a power supply are a lot more expensive than $50. More like $2500 on a supply this size and that varies on how many countries you want to sell your product in. Country specific deviations will add to the total. Manufacturers try to cut cost as much as they can.

There is a guy who is one of the founders of Counterpoint from way back in the 80's. They went out of business several years ago. Today he is upgrading Counterpoint products to yield much higher quality sound. He designed the originals. Back when he designed them for the consumer market they cut cost to lower manufacturing cost and get a better profit margin. Now he makes balls to the wall upgrades to these amps that make them sound a lot better. I wouldn't be surprised M does the same. Cut cost! Buy a cheap power supply already approved. All speculation of course based on my own experience working for manufacturers getting there product approvals to sell world wide. Every penny counts for a company to make a profit and survive.

Ron

NCPL, You are so wise...

Ha! Brilliant!

To my honourable friend the Earl of Crustiness;

You can take my psu, but you'll never take my processor!

I think you may be sitting to close to your 8k's there George...

EMP or SPL?

Hi gents,

I cannot imagine that a one-off outlay of lets say 10 grand for a PSU approval would put Meridian off. Come on, 50 odd or so employees, brand new facilities. 10 grand for PSU approval is peanuts, especially since the the PSU can be used in a range of products.

They must be of the opinion that there is no substantial sonic benefit in relation to the additional cost. This is due to the fact that a linear power supply in comparison is going to be more expensive (my guess) compared to their current market sourced switched mode power supply.

With regards to alternative switched mode PS units, I have had a quick look after this discussion and multiple output units are also available. Don't know about cost of these units though.

On the other hand, it must be easier to design a high quality linear PS unit as a potential replacement for switched unit then to find a switched mode unit which is better.

Just my tuppence...

BTW, my $50 figure was for the power supply itself, not the approvals.

Anyway, there's no question it's a business, a tough one w/low volume, and every penny counts. However, the #'s of cheaping out on a power supply still don't make sense to me.

Let's say M makes 1K per G68 sold. And let's assume that the power supply upgrade made a major improvement. Reviews and word-of-mouth would likely reflect this -- let's assume it generated sales of 10 more units. There's another 10K in profits that would cover approvals. Oversimplifying, but you get the point.

You could argue that such an SQ and therefore value improvement -- 'the G68 rivals processors costing many times more in SQ' (so go the reviews) -- would generate even more sales -- now we've covered the costs and are making add'l profit.

M could probably also simply add $100 or more to the price of the unit -- would this stop anyone from buying at this price level ?

A hole in this argument is that reviews and word-of-mouth are only part of the story -- marketing (all facets of it) is what generates sales more than anything.

But SQ is obviously very important to most M customers, and again, a few hundred bucks at these price levels is unlikely to be a deal breaker.

Counterpoint went out of business Maybe they would have been better off charging an extra $200/amp and doing it better from the start.

Arcam advertised that they spent 1 million dollars to develop the AV8 processor -- cutting a 10 or 20K corner doesn't make sense in this kind of scenario.

Well guys I can only tell you that whether your eating caviar, drinking expensive French wine or eating a greasy Philly cheese steak, drinking a lite beer fron the bottle, & wiping your mouth with a sock:

The sound quality of my G68 is honestly just amazing with the new IEC, single throw switch, & power supply.

I hope that some else trys it out and reports their findings - good or bad.

Thanks

We can argue this up and down and all of us will never agree this is an improvement until some of us try it. I plan to give this a try but with my 568.2. I have a scope here at home and I also have a spectrum analyzer from work with me. I want to see what the output looks like on my 568.2 power supply. Before I open the 568 I will make some measurements of the RF currents on all external wiring. I'll focus on the power supply switching frequency for starters. If I were at work I could do this in an anechoic chamber which would be better since all ambient RF would be gone. If the ambient is bad I may take it to work and make the measurements there next week.

By the way its not just the noise generated by the supply that can affect the sound. Anthony made other changes that made the supply more robust with a smoother output. Even with local regulation in the DAC section any further smoothing of the main DC supply will yield better performance. I can hear a tighter and bigger soundstage with external AC line regualtion in my own system. So that tells me the supply isn't the best IMHO. Noise measurements with an analyzer might not prove anything. My plan is to try a much higher current linear supply and use my ears eventually. After all thats what we are striving for...better sound to our ears.

I know its tough for some to except Stevens claim. But I'm really interested in his finding. I hate not knowing. I need to prove it to myself. And I know what manufacturers do to reduce cost. If they made the G68 more expensive, would it sell? A few dollars more and you can have an 861. Plus if they made it sound better than the 861...the 861 wouldn't sell. Interesting thought!

Ron

Hope to try it out as well. My point is that I don't get using an inadequate power supply from M's standpoint.