Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems DSP8000 Audition

I have an 861 and 800 with front and rear dsp6000's and 2 dsp33's for my sides and a dsp5500 for my center. When I went to the Meridian DVD audio demo for the 861/800 upgrades the dealer of course had dsp8000's. Of course the sound was awesome. My first question of course is will I hear the difference in the 8000's in the from vs the 6000's? Cause as you well know I will have to sell my firstborn to buy the 8000's

so what are first-borns going for these days? mine is pretty new still - 13 months. do you get a better deal on potential or a better deal on productive, lower-maintenance older ones?

:-)

sab

How about a lease arrangement? I'm sure my son will mow the lawn, wash the car, and clean the cat litter just to provide his dear ol' dad with 8000's.

I like the 8000's a lot but I do not think they are the best value. As always I must say that I am a big fan of Meridian and like the people who work there very much. I have had the pleasure of spending quite a bit of time with the 8K's and a 800 as a CD transport and controller. They sound very good. But IMHO you can get much better sound with something like Dunlavy SC-V speakers and a good amp for half the price. I would encourage to listen and see for your self. I must say that the 8K's look very nice but if you close your eyes and listen, you will see a much better "value" with the Dunlavy speakers. If the price was a bit more down to earth for the 8K's or if and when Meridian takes the technology that is in the 8K's and puts that into a more reasonably priced speaker it will be much easier for me to recommend. But if you are looking for the best sound you can get, and I assume that is why you are looking at the 8K's then I would look at the SC-V's.

Hope this helps.

Al

I once read somewhere that Bob Stuart said he can put his 8Ks even in a customized furniture and make it sound good. This implies access to the onboard DSP via PC for an in-room calibration of the frequency response (room correction) ? So far I have seen no further evidence that this is actually possible with the 8ks, or is it ? For that amount I think it should be possible.

On the Dunlavys, which I have not heard, I can hardly believe that a passive non DSP corrected speaker will sound as neutral, although I have not seen a frequency plot on the 8Ks. Does anybody have a plot on the 8ks ?

BTW: "closing ones eyes to hear some sort of difference" is always an indication to me that the differences we talk about are minor. Either a speaker clearly images in a direct comparison or it fails. Such minor differences that one has to close his eyes and "fully concentrate" to hear something are differences I would call almost redundant.

There are real big differences between certain speakers. I would urge you to hear a B+W Signature and a Genelec in the same price class. Then you will notice what real imaging is, what real "hard center phantom imaging" is without a center speaker.

From Dunlavys professional recommndations I would expect a good sound radiation pattern with good vertical bundling. It should therefore image much better than many high end speakers that are designed for a giant real but unfocused soundstage. But maybe the Dunlavys are only good in Gary Reber's acoustically treated HT pit, which minimizes the effect of poor sound radiation designs by it superior room dampening ?


[This message has been edited by Andreas (edited 11-29-2001).]