SUMMARY

Spent more than 8 hours auditioning a pair of DSP8000 speakers. The system auditioned included an 800 DVD; 861 Processor with upsampling and MHR enabled on the 800.

In summary, the sound was astonishing; with superbly transparent out of the box presentation; great imaging and revealing a level of “air”, depth, detail and above all, musicality that I personally never had the pleasure of hearing before.

DETAIL

Currently, I own an 800 / 861 combination feeding 3 by D6k`s at the front and a pair of D5k`s at the rear, with a D2500 sub used for movies.

Before going to the audition, I have to admit I was VERY sceptical that I would hear a substantial difference between my D6k`s and the D8k`s. I did expect the D8k`s to be better but not sufficiently better to go anyway near justifying the almost 3 fold difference in price. Nothing prepared me for the substantial difference in performance that I heard.

The UK dealer that I had purchased the above from called me to tell me that they had recently received a pair of D8k`s and that they had set them up at the home of the dealer owner. By the time that I auditioned them, the D8k`s had been run in for about 8 days of constant playing. His regular system was the same 800 / 861 out to a Krell Class A 300C amplifier feeding a pair of B&W Nautilus 801 speakers (and these were used for comparison purposes during the course of the audition.)

Both the 800 series were running the latest versions of the software (1.61 for the 800 and 2.71 for the 861.) Using an SPL meter, I ran the 861 Calibration mode to ensure that the listening level at the seating position was the same as with my own home system.

The room size and type plays an extremely important part in any sound “system”, but I was fortunate that the room was very similar in layout and dimensions to my own, but with an 8` rather than a 10` ceiling. This enabled me to get familiar to the room quite quickly. During the course of the audition, we settled on levels of Axis at -2 and Bass set at -2 (to -3 on some music) as those that best suited the room.

Listening primarily to my own eclectic CD collection, we went through a range of Jazz, Classical, Opera, Rock, Soul and R&B music. These were primarily 44/16 CD`s with a few 2-channel 96/24 DVD-V`s thrown in for good measure.

My main thoughts would run along the lines of

� Tremendous “Air” around instruments and voices
� Great imaging and separation while maintaining the cohesiveness of the music as a whole
� Transparent imaging resulting in a complete removal of the “box”
� The best “close your eyes and the performers are in the room” performance I`ve ever heard
� “Vocals” were just superb and I found myself listening to inflections and nuances that I had either not heard at all or as clearly in my own system (which I had thought was revealing)
� The best compliment I can pay them is that I didn`t want to leave and given a choice, I would have stayed there and listened to my entire collection just to “hear the music”

For comparison purposes, we twice rolled the B&W N801`s back in (and Meridians back out.) Replaying the same tracks immediately highlighted the discrepancies in the performance between the Krell / B&W combination and the D8k`s.

It must be understood that the B&W N801`s are a truly excellent speaker, particularly in the mid and top ranges, with very good imaging. It`s just that the D8k`s are just extraordinary (IMHO)

In summary, I would STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you do what it takes to get a listen to these speakers and to make your own mind up.

Yes the price is also extraordinary and while I do understand the economies of scale to be had from “standardising” on one design of a product (rather than having multiple options), I really do wish that Meridian would look after their “Meridian Digital System” customers, by cutting down on the amount of duplication between its products.

For example, in a potential 800 / 861 / D8k system, each of the stages is capable of upsampling, and when using the superior 3 stage upsampling in the 800, the same stages in the 861 and D8k`s are left under utilised. If the removal of such stages reduced the overall price, WITHOUT affecting the performance, then I would be very much in favour of such a change. I`m pretty sure that Meridian would use the argument of economies of scale by having one design, but nonetheless….

An extraordinary speaker at an extraordinary price….

A final comment is that a recent web search reveals that there is a review of the D8k`s in the November issue of Stereophile. As this is not freely available over here (Ireland), had anybody seen this review and can it be posted here in some manner.

[This message has been edited by RHurley (edited 11-26-2001).]

-