Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Help: External DAC's and Digital Bypass

Hi Gary,

No I am not using a squeezebox. I was planning on it at some point.

Ron

Hi Ron

Try and get a listen to a Transporter, I was using a modified Transporter as the DAC on my 568.2, the performance was up there with the best, even beating my GNSC modified Wadia 861se. Not exactly a bargain though, the mods alone were twice the cost of the Transporter, but worth it. I've had 'buyer's remorse' quite a few times in the past but this is the first time I've had 'seller's remorse'!

Regards
Gary

Hi Gary,

My filtered 568.2 sounds great! I may get a squeezebox at some point and back up all my music but another external DAC is not in my plans. Maybe my ears are getting old. My 568 sounds great at all volumes.

I used to plug and play and spend all kinds of money on my sound system. Not any more. I even had separate video and audio setups at one time. It was a pain in the butt to swap out cables to setup for either music or video. The sound is perfect to me right now and I don't fuss with changing things around for music or video sound. My video system needs some updating. Looking at 1080p projectors now.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Ron

Hi Guys,

Finally managed to get my DAC working out of the digital mains L/R output with variable volume control.

I think the problem that I was having was whenever I was trying to setup the 568.2 manually from the front panel, any devices that I had actively connected into the digital input sockets, interferred with the changing of the settings.

In the end, I had to move the digital connection for the DVD player off from D2 (DVD) to CD (D1) and applying the 2.0 A setting then worked. Everytime I had the DVD player connected to D2 and made the manual change, the 568.2 thought that I had a Meridian DVD player connected, checked the Meridian DVD check box within its setup as well as changed the port mapping from D2 to multichannel, which is why I nevery got any signal out of the DVD player. By removing the DVD player from D2, I could make the change and all worked after that. I was then able to plug the DVD player back to pot d2 and so far no problems.

I did set my DAC to PLL:Wide intially but I found out that I could still use the DAC in all three settings, Crystal/narrow/wide. From a DAC point of view, there are no restrcitions as to what setting I can use.

I also worked out that setting the H/S Flag made no difference to deciphering the signal from the Meridian to which the Lavry could understand. However, setting the H/S flag to 'Y', did actually make a difference to the signal being sent through the DAC whereby the Lavry was able to detect and change up to 88Khz or higher to match the incoming signal rate, instead of beforehand where the signal syated at a constant 44khz. Now, CD can play up to 88Khz or higher and movies at 48khz or higher. I only have a standard DVD player, no 24-bit/192khz DACS. As I mentioned beforehand, I'll be waiting for Oppo to release their DV-938H universal DVD player. I will also be hunting for a Marantz CD-12, which should do me for a while before I start upgrading again.

All round everything's turned out quite well.

One observation so far that I have noticed is that when playing a DVD, the menu is at the normal audible level (prologic stero) but as soon as I play movies in AC3, the volume level is considerably lower.

On another note, I've sent a question off to Meridian about upgrading the firmware on the 568.2 to the latest firmware v2.5b9.

Firstly, I don't know which program they are talking about that applies all the 6 files at once but I find that I can only apply each file one at a time. This is no different to the files being applied the normal way, if that's what you can call it?

The only file that I am concerned with is TYPES568.MFU. When writing this file to the 568, a message pops up saying that it is not designed for the 568 and any attempts to write this file may render the 568 useless.

Has anyone else had any problems writing this particular file to the 568.2?

Thanks for all your help guys, very much appreciated.

Cheers
Mark.

Hello Mark,

Glad you have been successful with your project.

I don't quite understand the following statement:


The first sentence says the HS flag makes no difference but then you say if you set HS to "Y" that the Lavry says the incoming signal is 88kHz. Does the Lavry show 96kHz when you play a DVD?

I thought that HS could only be used for internal upsampling inside the Meridian. If you choose 7.1 DDD in the computer menu HS is grayed out as a choice. Meridian expects you to use encrypted MHR. I thought that Meridian was not allowed to send out unencrypted upsampled digital audio.

"Digital Bypass." If you do a search with "GGA" you should be able to find what Meridian uses this for.

I am also using external Lavry Blues and Benchmark DACs but with external Placette volume controls so I Type as 7.1 DDD (actually 6.1 DDD since I don't use a center speaker).

Cheers,
George

Hi George,

My impression, was that when using the digital speaker output connectors that the signal passed through was encrypted, which would be of no use to the digital input of the Lavry.

But it works for me that way I've set it up. I also was of the assumption that the HS flag was only valid if you had digital Meridian speakers and a Meridian DVD player via the MHR link connected to the 568.2.

That's why I mentioned that the Lavry could indeed pick up signals being upsampled when the HS flag was checked. I know what the HS flag did but I didn't think it would actually work with the equipment that I was using.

Cheers
Mark.

Hi Mark,

Manually typing the 568 with 7.1 AAA takes us into area that is unique to the 568 and most likely the 861. You could not do what you are doing with the G series.

The manual typing actually activates all the digital and analog outputs simultaneously and on top of it allows the volume control to affect both the digital and analog outputs. When I mentioned this to one of the M engineers he essentially would not believe it. You cannot create this setup in the computer and if you change something via the computer you lose the manual setting.

MHR can only be used with M speakers since it is encrypted [and 24/96]. Non-MHR can be used with any DAC; it is non-encrypted and non-upsampling. Non-MHR with HS=Y is something I have not explored. As mentioned HS is not available in the computer program with digital speakers.

This was all discovered by GaryG to whom we must extend thanks for complicating our lives. Hi Mark,

Manually typing your 568 with 7.1 AAA takes us into area that is unique to the 568 and most likelyl the 861. You could not do what you are doing with the G series.

The manual typing actually activates all the digital and analog outputs simultaneously and on top of it allows the volume control to affect both the digital and analog outputs. When I mentioned this to one the M engineers he essentially would not believe it. You cannot create this setup in the computer and if you if you change something via the computer you lose the manual setting.

MHR can only be used with M speakers since it is encrypted. Non-MHR can be used with any DAC; it is non-encrypted and non-upsampling. Non-MHR with HS=Y is something I have not explored. As mentioned HS is not available in the computer program with non-MHR.

This was all discovered by GaryG to whom we must extend thanks for complicating our lives.

So it seems we can add to our knowledge base by stating with manual typing with AAA that the digital outputs are upsampled with HS=Y, something that M probably does not even know.

Cheers,
George

Thanks George, let's hope Meridian don't go removing it now they know about it!

Regards
Gary