Originally Posted by VirusKiller
Ok, before this gets really ugly...

c7775, you have posted some good information (e.g. the detailed specs on the Panasonic BD player), but you have jumped in as a forum newbie with some stuff that was incorrect or at very much at odds with the hammered-out consensus on this forum.

Please bear in mind that whilst you own, and are familiar with, a lot of high end kit, your knowledge of Meridian products is obviously limited.

Most of us here genuinely believe that lossy audio through Meridian products regularly sounds better than lossless audio through the products of mainstream brands (including Onkyo). That is why we are here and why we are (mostly) sticking with Meridian than heading off to Japan (and why the lack of a Meridian HDMI input solution is particularly galling).

The Onkyo processor packs in a tremendous amount of functionality, but it doesn't contain 25 years worth of ground-breaking understanding of digital audio and psycho-acoustics. It doesn't contain proprietry software decoding of audio formats (to avoid the subtly incorrect processing that ends up in stock decoding chips). It is very unlikely that the Onkyo DACs achieve the 20-bit resolution that Meridian DACs do.

You are most welcome here and clearly have much to offer us in your knowledge of kit beyond Meridian, but in only one week you have managed to rile both administrators of this forum!

I would be grateful if you would take some time to become more familiar with Meridian products before you recommend to another newcomer that he junks one of the finest audio processors ever made for something that clearly won't be.

oh dear. I only made that recommendation because i intent on doing the same thing in my main theather at home , i was going to incorporate the above onkyo for hdcd/dsd/dts-hd/true-hd decoding and have the 568.2 for CD + DVD-audio.

Of course the above would entail swapping cables around, but i thought it would have been worth the hassle

I have done a lot of research on this topic and generally the consensus on my main point of reference (avs) is quite the opposite to what you said. I was solely convinced that lossless playback on a reasonably good grade equipment would outshine my Meridian, hence the reason why i started looking for a new pre-pro (and fast at that!)

nevertheless as most things are i really do intend on buying the onkyo and judging for myself that.

p.s. i have huge respect for the company , and rate the Meridian processors the best (nevertheless i also hold enourmous repsect for halcro/mark levinson/primare/lexicon). Especially for the price of the 500 kit (as you said) there really isnt any substitue for Meridian.

And just to continue on my ramble once and for all, IMO techically speaking Meridian make some of the best mechanisms for CD/DVD reproduction smile (as well as accuphase/dcs/esoteric)

That said i have a gripe with Meridian power amps, especially their tonality in the upper ranges, and an apparent "sweetness" in the 5-8khz band.

Finally for two channel reproduction, i have some gripe with the lack of neutrality in the vast majority of Meridian products (and believe me i have heard most of them, as a friend of mine is the head of one of their licenced dealers: AVC). I have had the opportunity to sample a 800/861 system along side an accuphase/gryphon/conrad johnson system. One had DSP6000s the other had Wilson Watt Puppys. And put it purely to my taste, but the Meridian was not the better one. it must be said that no processing was done on both systems (bar from eq), but i personally do not believe in anything that alters the analog signature of my source (and of course lets hope that sound engineers are up to their task, which sometimes is not the case)

Anyways thats pretty much all i have to say, and hopefully i wont annoy people any more