For me it's the architecture. It is all much more intelligently designed than many other high end makes. They've looked at things from scratch to get to the best solution, rather than carrying on legacy traditions. Everything is provably better, not just hifi bullsh!t. There is so much magic invoked at the high end that it's refreshing to see things engineered rather than conjured from a cauldron.

I love the DSP architecture (but can't afford to switch to it yet). I love the way the G68 has been engineered. It is as much a card based architecture as an 861. The PSU, display and volume controls are the only things not card based. It will be purely a marketing decision whether cards come out for it, I reckon.

I've been off for a while, and have seen some disillusionment on here with the lack of recent progress for HDMI and the like. To be honest, I think I'd stick with Meridian even if they never had it. The sound is breathtaking. I'm confident that what is inside the box is about as good as it can be. That's more important than the latest interconnects.

So for me, the special sauce is confidence in the designers.

Cheers,

Mark.

861v8, DSP5200, DSP5200HC, DSP5000mk2, UHD722, MF10, Prime, Prime PSU