As you can see from my earlier posts, I also think that Meridian dropping support for DVD-A is INSANE.

However, I again want to stress that All DVD-A`s (at least 98%) will continue to play on ALL Meridian DVD Players, including the newer G92, G96, G95, F80 and 808.2 as well as the “older” DVD players. The only Tracks they won`t play is the MLP Encoded MULTI CHANNEL 5.1 mixes

Most importantly, they will continue to play the High Resolution 96/24 2-Channel Mixes available on the vast majority of DVD-A`s. AND they will output this Track DIGITALLY over a SINGLE Coax into your G68 as well as the newer, just released G92 and G61R (i.e. Smartlink or 3xSPDIF not required). These 96/24 Tracks are a VERY significant sonic improvement over their 48/16 equivalents and should be enjoyed long into the future

Likewise, ALL of the Meridian DVD Players will play the 2-Channel Music DVD-V`s out there with 96/24 tracks and will also output this track DIGITALLY on a single Coax to the G68 etc. So, again, these can be enjoyed well into the future.

In the Real World, the only Tracks that we will miss out on are the Multi Channel High Res mixes and IMHO, many of these were a little suspect anyway for music that had not been originally recorded and produced with a Multi Channel environment in mind. The net result was that “older” music usually sounded better on the 2-Channel High Res mixes than the MLP Multi Channel mixes (at least to my ears)

In any case, Trifield and other Meridian Soundfields usually do a better job of creating a “Surround” ambience than the Multi Channel mixes (again IMHO)

The Superb AIX and Teldec Catalogs (as well as some other people) who recorded specifically for Multi Channel would be the exceptions to the above

For what it`s worth, there are quite a few non-Meridian DVD-V Players out there that will

a) Play the 2-Channel 96/24 Mixes from both DVD-A`s and DVD-V`s
b) AND Output this DIGITALLY to the Meridian Processor

These include many of the Sony DVD-V players (7700DVD, 9000ES etc.) as well as some of the Pioneer DVD-V players.

Indeed, I successfully play many DVD-A`s and DVD-V`s in a Sony DVD player to a Meridian 568 (and get the expected 96/24 LPCM on display) The result is still very good and naturally on a higher plane than regular CD`s

So, while Meridian`s “news” is disappointing, all is not lost for High Resolution Music Replay


Cheers
Ronnie



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