Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Why has the Meridian Music Server die?

Joel
I must respectfully disagree with your statement above. Most of Meridian players are sold along with a Meridian Processor or within the context of a Meridian Digital System. In addition, the vast majority of the Magazine Reviews and Interviews that have been done over the past 5+ years are within the context of a Meridian player in a Meridian system. (The Reviews / Interviews section of the Meridian Media site confirm that very few reviews or interviews are about Meridian`s Analog performance)

In addition, like you I listened intently to Bob Stuart at the Hitchhiker day and asked several questions during the session. I also asked him several questions during the coffee sessions. I also met him on another occasion later this year. I`ve also read most, if not all of the media interviews he`s given at shows and other events. I also spoke to John Bamford for about 2 hours at the recent Heathrow show.

Let me state categorically that there is simply NOTHING in Bob`s (or Meridian`s) words, tone or body language which would lead you to believe that he PRIVATELY believes that a Meridian source doesn`t offer any performance benefit in an all Digital System. They have categorically stated the opposite.

So as I said in a previous post, feel free to disagree with him; call him a great actor; call him deluded, biased or misinformed; call him a “snake oil salesman” but PLEASE don`t imply that the only reason he advocates the use of a Meridian source is because “he has his business hat on”, because there is simply ZERO evidence that he somehow privately believes this to be the case

I have no problem with that...

I don't disagree with this as I feel that Meridian spinners as digital transports have a lot to offer, particularly vs. other disc transports. However, I also feel that there are alternatives.

Edit: We go round and round in circles in this debate and, yet, nobody has ever stated a valid technical reason other than multiple re-reads (getting the data off the disc) and low jitter performance as to why a Meridian transport should be superior than (say) a Squeezebox (with lower jitter output than most CD players) playing EAC extracted CDs (using multiple re-reads).

Ohhh I like it when things heat up.

Try heating a disc with a hair dryer before spinning it- it helps the disc seat better- also be sure to swipe the top of the disc with a green marker. It must be permanent and it must be a straight line. A wavy line will degrade the sound.


LMAO- I am kidding of course!

In all seriousness, a few notes:


Someone mentioned solid state sources will be the future. To my mind, solid state= non volatile RAM, such as flash memory. I think there is not enough capacity/ unit of currency for this right now. I think we are going to hard drive based for quite some time. Though one of my favorite things about the iPod Nano is its very fast recall time (no hard drive)- and the rumor mill says the next gen of Apple Macs will use some flash memory to store some or all of the OS- so boot times will be dramatically improved.

Meridian cables. Interesting to note they don't use gold connectors- I believe they are using silver or some other material. Gold is not such a great electrical conductor, whereas silver is, but gold is more malleable so can make a better physical connection.

My own 2 cents on the blue M cables and the M power cords is if they are charging $10-20k for a product, and some fancy cables that would make it better would add $500 to that product, they could easily add that in and the product would still sell. So, not debating whether cables make a difference here (I think they dont), but my feeling is M is shipping their stuff with the appropriate cables. I wouldn't bother replacing them- unless I needed more length- and when it comes to interconnects you really shouldn't- that is certainly not optimal.

So heres the $64,000 question: if Meridian built a music server- simply a black box with a video/ monitor out/ rs232 control/ msr control/ say 500gb-1tb of space/ and the price was around $10,000 for such unit- how many of us would run out and purchase it. I think the business case for such a product would require that over 80% of those here would make that purchase. I probably would not. Im not doubting Meridian's data integrity, but I already have it in the guise of the Kaleidescape and my music listening tastes (rock, prog rock mostly with some jazz) do not really lend themselves to the nuances Meridian would pull out. See the place Meridian can add value here is the playback of the stored data so thats why I think they should partner with someone like Kaleidescape if they wanted to do a server. Someone already has the great interface and control. Meridian could take a K player and rework it and build a super awesome audio version of that player. Course youd have to buy the K system..... pricy... but it works fantastically well. Easily one of the best things Ive ever purchased is my K system.

Still if someone asks me who makes the finest front end- you know my answer as far as I am concerned. of course, ask me who makes "the best" pre/pro or speakers......

Pardon me, I have to get back to blowdrying and marking my CD collection.......... I wonder if that marker thing would work for my computer....... :p

best regards,
Jerry

I did put forward the scenario whereby Meridian do not output bit accurate from the disc. IIRC, CD's are 16 or 18 bit and SPDIF is 24 bit so there are 6 to 8 unused bits that Meridian can do something with - such as adding dither - people do like their 518's which can do similar.

At the moment I have a 8Gb Micro SD card in my phone. Its dimensions are ONLY 11mm by 15mm by 1mm. Its cost, $46. Imagine how many of those will fit inside any typical Source / Front End chassis

Toshiba and Sony already offer 32Gb Solid State only Laptops and have stated that 75% of their new Laptop offerings during 2008 will be Solid State only (i.e. no Hard Drives). Apple, Dell and HP have made similar commitments. Startup time, Memory Stability and Non-Corruption as well as Power Consumption / Battery Operation times are all factors here. Network Desktop PC's will follow this (Green) trend during 2008 for the same reasons. Company Server type capacities will take longer, but they will progress as well.

Also remember that I spoke about the Source / Front End being Solid State NOT the Server. Even then it will take 2-3 years before this begins to happen, for many reasons, not least of which is the Copy Protection demanded by the Music and Movie Studios.

I don't believe that the Meridian Source / Front End of the future (2-3 years away) will depend on a REAL TIME data feed from a Server, hence that is why I believe it will essentially have a VERY large buffer to deal with issues that can result from "Real Time" Delivery

Gold does not corrode. Copper and silver do.

I'd be surprised if they did this as it might make for incompatibility with 3rd party equipment. Resolution enhancement (a la 518) is handled in the G6x and 861 processors anyway.

Joel
Can you please offer a “valid technical reason” as to why you think the Meridian`s own Dolby Digital / DTS Processing is superior, or even different, to that of Arcam, Denon, Yamaha or any other manufacturer?? Remember that your ears don`t count in this argument. Objective and scientific reasons are the only ones that count

Or perhaps a “valid technical reason” for why you think that the De-Jittering offered by the Meridian G68 is better than that offered by the many others out there and usually for a far better price.

Equally can you please offer a “valid technical reason” as to why you think the Processing, Scaling and overall Performance of the Lumagen Radiance Video Processor is any different or better than that of other manufacturers who use the same Video Processing Chips??

I feel sure that Meridian and Lumagen will be happy to share their R&D Papers and Technical Test Data with you.

Here are some reasons (which have been stated many times) for why a Meridian Player sounds different / better than other CD Players and Squeezbox / Airport Express type devices
• Meridian's Resolution Enhancement to 88/24
• 3 Stage FIFO Memory Buffering (compare to G68!)
• 3 Layers of Error Correction
• MHR Output
• Very Low Jitter Outputs
• Power supply design and placement
• Superior Chassis Design for low noise (RFI) interference

These are just some of the reasons. No doubt Meridian could voice many others

Disagree with the above reasons if you like, but please don't state that they haven't been mentioned before on MANY occasions, both on this board; on Meridian Q&A's as well as the many White Papers and FAQ's on Meridian's website.

Meridian implements proven psycho-acoustic research into its algorithms, plus (for 96/24 inputs) process at a frequency where audio artifacts are beyond the range of human hearing.

I don't and have never claimed this. All I've claimed is that it is superb and a real transport leveller.

Lumagen processors only use the Gennum chip for deinterlacing and noise reduction. Everything else, including the NoRing scaling, is proprietry algorithms handled in FPGA. Video processing (particularly calibration of sources which do not adhere to gamut and decoding standards) is devilishly hard and many manufacturers simply aren't up to the task. Lumagen happen to be very good at it.

I doubt it.

Meridian's Resolution Enhancement to 88/24 - For stereo sources, this can also be done in the processor. The only benefit I see is that 96/24 streams have half the jitter vs. 48/24 streams.

3 Stage FIFO Memory Buffering (compare to G68!) - Internal de-jittering this time and critically important for the on-board DAC. Perhaps less critical for the output.

3 Layers of Error Correction - Definitely proprietry knowledge here, but a similar sort of thing is in advanced ripping tools such as EAC. I'll reiterate, Meridian players have to do error correction in real time.

MHR Output - Reducing jitter in the transfer. I'm don't think this is used for CD any more...

Very Low Jitter Outputs - Jitter reduction. BTW, the last time I saw a measurement from a Meridian player, it had surprising high jitter. That was a while ago though and before MHR.

Power supply design and placement - I'm not convinced that this will have a major effect on digital processing. Will affect the DAC in a big way though.

Superior Chassis Design for low noise (RFI) interference - Ditto.

I've heard them all before and, as I have commented, I don't see that any of these are the technical explanations I am seeking. YMMV.

Why would it be incompatible? It would simply be a 24 bit signal which can come from any number of sources. IIRC, SPDIF is 24 bit, any unused bits are simply left unused.

The ability to re-read a disc multiple times in real time could form a basis of error correct and resolution enhancement that would simply not be possible to achieve further down the line when this additional information has been lost.

I have heard a difference in detail between 598 and G98 in exactly the areas (quiet parts of the passage) that the difference between 16 and 24 bits would be heard. It makes me believe that M are doing something with the lower 8 bits at source rather than doing it later in the chain and the reason for doing it at source is that they have the opportunity to have a second or third try at extracting the highest level of detail from the disc.

Another benefit of having information in these 8 bits is that there are bit transitions taking place, which makes it easier to lock on to the timing of the data stream and making dejittering easier whereas with a 16 bit data stream, it can only track the bits 2/3rds of the time.

Joel
You have glibly dismissed the reasons put forward yet neither can you put forward a technical reason for Meridian's or Lumagen's processing, other than "they are good at it"

Which is exactly my point. You accept as read Meridian's "proven psycho acoustic" methods yet dismiss their reasons for why they believe their players are better. Surely you don't expect them to share ALL their Proprietary Knowledge with us do you??

Dismiss them all you want but the above TECHNICAL reasons ARE the basis for why Meridian's players sound different or "better"

SPDIF is 20 bits, with 24 bits optional. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spdif . The 565 won't accept 24-bit inputs, for instance.

I don't think so. The objective is to get the bits off the disc 100% correct. The limitation is the poor parity levels inherent to CD. All players have some form of error correction (IIRC this is a requirement of CD playback), but real-time sector re-reads are possible if a manufacturer chooses to do this. Hence, I don't believe there is any Meridian voodoo here, but simply an intelligent re-reading algorithm to ensure that each bit has been read correctly. The same is available in ripping algorithms; arguably more so.

Huh????

Hmm. Most of the transitions will be in the least significant bits anyway, so I'm not sure I really buy this argument.

Take a deep breath and re-read your question and my answer. You asked why Lumagen's Radiance is better than other manufacturer's products that use the same chips. I replied that Lumagen only use the off-the-shelf chip for certain standard operations; the rest is in FPGA.

Bob Stuart's papers on psycho-acoustics are public and psycho-acoustic engineering is an established scientific discipline. If other manufacturers don't make use of it, that's their decision.

Their reasons revolve around (a) multiple re-reads of the disc and (b) de-jittering. Their answers are also not always in the context of a digital transport. If Meridian does use, for instance, psycho-acoustic engineering in their players, that is a technical reason for their superiority. Though I find it hard to believe that they would alter the original contents of a stereo recording.

And I think that they ARE NOT.

Ronnie. I'm going to politely remove myself from this thread. I entered it with caution and got sucked in more than I wanted. I feel I am being reasonable, but also that I'm wasting my time.