Dave,

I recently had an opportunity to compare all three of the Meridian processors with my analogue speakers at home over an extended period. Let me explain...

My system consists of an 800/861 driving a 558 power amp, and then Revel Ultima Studio/Voice/Embrace speakers (in a 5.0 configuration, with bass and LFE summed for the main stereo pair). However, the 800 and 861 both broke down and had to be returned to Meridian for repair. My local dealer lent me a 568, which I fed from my spare DVD player (a mid range Rotel machine). Then, he had to ask for the 568 back (to do a customer demo), so he lent me a 561 instead. I had the 568 and 561 each for about 2 weeks; then the 861 came back from repair. So I heard all three in close quarters in an analogue context.

I did make a few observations about the three processors during this time:

(1) They are all very, very good! They really do all shine in an analogue context.

(2) Price and quality are actually pretty well correlated. That's to say the best by far of the 3 really was the 861; smooth, detailed and very, very musical. I could listen to it for hours (I do actually!) It can even make my old Rotel DVD sound ok. The 568 was pretty darn good too, losing not too much on detail, and in other respects also very good. The 561, while not the best of the 3, was still absolutely fine; in no way unmusical. Just not quite as detailed and smooth.

(3) The 561 does have a significantly higher noise level than the other 2 processors. I noticed this particularly on movies; if you put the DVD player on pause, you really can hear a noticeable hiss from the speakers. The 568 is much quiter, while the 861 absolutely silent. This is one important reason to go for the 568 if you can afford it.

(4) However, if the budget is tight, the 561 nonetheless does have a lot going for it. It had a better bass than the 568 (in the context of my system), and is much lower price than the 568, especially if you need the video switching capability. This does not come as standard with the 568 (I think you also have to buy a 562V, and that makes the cost nearly double a 561).

(5) One other thing to remember is that the 561 only has single ended outputs, whereas the 568 has balanced for the front three speakers. I don't know if this is important to you, I certainly do run balanced outputs to the 558, normally from the 861 for all 5 channels.

Hope this is of some help.

Regards,

Andy Evans