Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems F80 @ HOME

After many delays, my F80 finally came home yesterday. Thats going to be my last bit of negatitivity about this product in this post. It did take the edge off the purchase. I was like a kid in a sweetshop with their first pocket money and not being able to buy anything. After a couple of years of not having money to 'squander', the F80 was to be a nice present to myself.

Like many that frequent this forum, I first heard the F80 back in February. Instant reaction was the hairs standing up on the back of my neck. The performance from this small box was gobsmacking. A few months later, when it was clear that there was a positive upturn in my finances, I pre ordered a Silver version.

Yesterday I got the call to say that my dealer had all colours available, except the silver one - which they expected in another week. As I had heard this many times before, I decided to remind myself what the other colours looked - thankfully nothing like the colour sampler on the Meridian website. In the end, I walked home with a white one - which surprised the wife as she still think that Ferarri's only come in red.

Packing clearly shows a more consumer orientated side to Meridian. Instead of the standard brown Meridian box there was a full colour printed box with pictures and specifications of the F80 - inside a Meridian brown box. I don't know if this double packaging is intential, but I did hear rumours that some of the delays were due to inadequate packaging. The outside box prevented use of the handle on the printed box, but thankfully the dealer was able to string up a handle for my walk home. Now, this is a portable unit, but its not that portable when in its box without a handle and you have to lug it a few hundred yards.

After unpacking, 99% of the setting up is a doddle. If you have used a piece of G series kit before, then this is going to be quite familiar. Its a refinement of the G series soft buttons. Date/time was already set for me - not sure if this was picked up off the RDS radio.

Hitting the radio button on the remote, nothing. The remote is a small unit, slightly larger than a credit card but a bit thicker - but not by too much. As it won't fit into your credit card holder, a nice touch is the magnetic back so it can be attached to your fridge or whatever - in my case, it sticks nicely to my anglepoise work light safe from the clutter of my work on the table. I must admit, the remote has a lovely feel to it and some soft 'skin' on the back that reminds me of a cross between swade (sp?) and rubber. No doubt an product of Ferarri. My 3 year old loves it too. On removing the sticky plastic protective packaging, I also noticed the tab isolating the battery. Very mild panic over.

On with the radio. FM selected bought up some familiar stations. Initially these were in mono. Having read the manual on the bus on the way home I didn't bother to get it out again. But if I did, I am sure that it would tell me what buttons I pressed or aerial that I connected to give me stereo. I must admit, initial reaction to FM was a little disappointing, but I soon found the settings for position - table (aka kitchen worktop) setting was'nt great but in conjunction with the volume control, it soon started to perform.

As this point, it became clear that the F80 has a sweet spot, and it kicked up a gear at about 85 (out of 99) on the volume scale. Pushing the volume a bit further, quality was not as distortion free to the limit as I was expecting. I think it was the quality of the source (Heart FM) and, as I later discovered, my 82 year old deaf neighbour knoching on the wall - seriously. This box gets seriously loud.

As a DAB virgin, I did a bit of fumbling with the controls and eventually discovered that I had to scan for stations. Results were variable, with the unit 'squelching' somewhat. I later discovered the different aerial settings, bit im still not 100% that I have found the right combination of aerial and setting. It took a while to realise that the squelch was made worse by being in close proximity to the unit. If using an external aerial, apparently DAB needs to be on antenna 2 so I will check this when I get home. 3 aerials are supplied - a curley (knows as pigs tail) stumpy wire, a telescopic and a piece of wire which is also acceptible for AM, FM and DAB. I am on the latter. There is also an internal aerial as an alternative to one of the external units. You can select which 'broadcast' uses what. So you could have FM/DAB on external and AM on internal etc.

One nice touch. There are approximately 16 user presets, and these can be assigned to any combination of FM, DAB and I guess AM. You also have the ability to turn off broadcast sources. So for instance, you can disable DAB if you like.

Putting in a random CD gave some indication of the performance. It was not a great quality CD (my wife's (honest) Carpenters greatest hits). Where the F80 is limiting is that it can be played at volumes that reveal deficiencies in the source material. And upset deaf 82 year old neighbours.

I also tried a DVD via s-video. I can't comment on quality as I used a cheap s-video cable in to a portable TV other than to say, perfectly adequate for this job. But its region free straight from the box.

Later listening had the wife asking when I became a classic music listener - the reply being that ever since I could get a decent source. Heart radio sounded better on DAB than FM - which was a surprise to me. I think bit rate was 160 or somethign likle that. But some other stations were marginal for use with DAB. I need to experiment further and try different aerial combinations.

Boundary settings are also available. As well as the usual, corner, free etc, there is also shelf, table and a I think a few others. There is also bass and tilt. Unfortunatly these have to be adjusted on the unit itself, so you can't sit on your sofa and toggle - a rewuest for a future change. The supplied remote is probably good for all operations, but an MSR can be used as well - turned off by default in the unit. But I don't think it adds anything that the smaller one cannot do.

I didn't tried aux inputs - of which there are 3. Analogue (3.5mm? stereo jack), optical and expansion - which initially appears to be for an iPod dock or cable. No news on availability of this but I don't think its imminent. But I understand that it will charge and control the iPod as well as being for audio. All aux sources can be individually named. It also had headphone out, sharing the socket with optical digital out. The is an option to turn off main speakers when headphones are connected, or not as the case may be. Not sure if this applies to optical out or whether its fixed or variable volume.

The display is some form of electro luminescent display. The quality of the test is second to none, much finer than that on the G series. It is dimmable and worrying, recommended to be dimmed in the manual to prolong the life of the display. After talking with M. tech support, I thinks its over cautious wording and nothing too much to concern myself with.

So far I have not quite found that sweet spot, but I know its there as I have heard it. Whether its the quality of the source, a tweak of the parameters, or units position I do not know.

But I haven't bought the unit for pure sound quality. Its replaced a 3 box cheap Philips tape/CD player with a single box DAB/FM/AM/DVD/CD player with external inputs for iPod or other music library devices - all in one nice box.

And im not even thinking of removing the Ferarri badge. Its just fine how it is.

You will have to record how it sounds and upload an MP3 of it somewhere... :p

That's not really in the spirit of the Ferrari tie-up, now is it?

What about a sound comparison? Does it blow the socks off the Philips as is? How does it compare it to a 2ch system?

The Philips is still at the start line.

I just put a decent source on this morning, Vangelis Themes. Not the best quality recordings but a couple of tracks that I have used since my 200 days for reference and very emotive music.

Putting the fact that I could not fit a 200/201/203/204/2x205's and pair of Kef 104/2's on the shelf, the F80 is as emotive as I remembered this combination was. Soundstage wise, I have not got the F80 to 'pop open', but I doubt it will as its really not best positioned - on a shelf in the corner. Bass wise, I cannot compare right know. I use to have a test I called the 'bollock test' - I sat on the edge of the sofa and listened to a particular track and if I could feel my, well, let us say, if I could feel the music, I knew the bass was 'in the right ball park'.

LOL at the bollock test

I wonder how the F80 compares to the Tivoli unit (http://www.tivoliaudio.com/product.php?productid=244). These guys have been getting rave reviews for the last few years (Henry Kloss design). I like the retro look.

me too !!!

More sensitive than the RS SPL meter

I have noticed that as well as boundary settings for free, shelf, table and corner, the white version also comes with a setting for 'floor' especially for Essex girls to dance around

Just demoed it at PJHifi. I was expecting more somehow. The discs I had been enjoying in the car didn't seem to involve me in the same way. Top end seemed less crystal crisp and tinkly, the bass more boomy and flatulent than I'd hoped. I played with the different modes, took it off the shelf and onto the floor and back to see how that might affect it and still couldn't get it to where I liked it. And I did want to like it.

Admittedly, I am not familiar with the unit and it is possible - even likely, given the rave reviews from the factory visitors - that I was not getting the best out of it. The demonstrator was pretty unfamiliar with the unit himself; he was unaware that there was a remote for it, nor did he seem keen to remove it from its cellophane packet when he did retrieve the box for me to read the manual. He also appeared to be as new to the room modes as I was when I rooted down the menu for them. In his defence he had just come back from his holiday and I did ask to see it on shortish notice.

In all other respects, it was a slick bit of kit, but at no point did I ever feel that I was listening to anything other than a bosebox.

As bedside radio-alarm clock, I didn't notice whether it some kind of battery backup, like the Tivoli, should there be a power outage in the night.

I just bought an F80. Wow! It isn't quite DSP8000 but the sound is full, dynamic and very appealing. It seems to be very well thought out. I will post again after a few days. Well done M, it deserves big success.

Ian - congrates on the new F80 and thanks for the review. In the spririt of the co-brand here are some pics of your co-brand I took today at the Car Show here in Celebration FL (the Disney town I live in):
http://web.mac.com/kenliles/iWeb/Ferrari-F80-Cobrand/Celebration-Car-Show-F80.html

I wonder if the F80 will come in all these Ferrari colors!
Notice toward the end what Lamborghini is doing as competition...

No doubt your next F80 will be in one of these....

Enjoy...

ken

Im not sure if the clock settings are picked up from radio or is in built, but I didn't need to set the clock - it was already showing the correct date and time. I suspect it has a built in RTC as I going to set the clock was probably the first thing that I went to do and I found it correct. Also, as a 'portable' unit, having to set the clock every time that it is moved would be a bit of a pain.

Two further observations:
Putting in a CD, display shows 44k1 so I guess no up sampling is going on?

Externally, the unit has 3 visible inputs marked Aux 1, Optical In - Aux 2 and Aux 3 - Dock. However, in setup, there are 4 aux inputs - Aux 1, Aux 2, Aux 3 and optical. Unless the Optical In doubles as something (which I cannot detect), I am not sure where the 4th input is. All can have their labels configured to Aux x/Optical, TV, MP3, Zune, iPod, MD.

As for configuration, tilt seems to have quite a bearing. So its a matter of balancing the settings of width (recomended to go large if you are sitting further back), location and tilt. Its just a shame that these cannot be tweaked from the seating position using the remote or MSR+.

As my first real DAB experience (rather than a 5 minute dabble with a Psion waveradio which dismissed the technology), I am surprised how variable the signal is. Last night, the F80's signal strength meter was showing values in the upper 500/lower 600 range (on a scale up to 1024) but this morning, with nothing changed (including the station), is back down to mid 300's/low 400's. Putting this in perspective, the value 320 is considered the minimal setting so these values are marginal and can result in some squelch/burble.

Certainly I need to work on aerial configuration, even if it means me putting splitter on the aerial socket. If I have TV/FM aerials in the loft that are then multiplexed and diplexed, I would not get a DAB signal out of this? Or does DAB share the same frequencies as either TV/FM (in the same way that Freeview shares same frequencies as analogue TV)? I don't know if I could get put a DAB aerial in the loft and simply fit a TV/FM/DAB wallplate as components (distribution amp/wall plates) in between only deal FM and TV.