A faulty driver will be contstantly bad-sounding, I guess. This was clearly periodical. The speaker could behave well for weeks, then the problem started (after driving the thing hard, not excessively - more like 75 than 85). After turning the speaker completely off (standby or a long pause didn't fix it) , it was OK again. I mean, two guys from the dealers service dept virtually LIVED in my house for a while. They tried everything. Swapped the back panels. The problem followed the old panel (which in itself proves that it is no driver problem). Then the problem started again - in the speaker with the NEW panel. Ghost in the machine kind of thing, really.

I did not mean to imply that every one of you distinguished Hitchhikers are tunnel-visioned Meridian fundamentalists. Just happened to notice that some seeem to hold technical malfunction as the least likely cause here...

Current M-related equipment: DSP7000 (2), G91A FM, Sonos ZP90/ZP80 Zone Players, F80 (kitchen,yellow).