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All FIFO Buffers are NOT the same

To be fair, this has been stressed from day 1 by Meridian (and Bob Stuart himself), in their 800 / 861 FAQ's as well as many interviews from the time of introduction of the 800 Series

Meridian and Bob have always been at pains the stress the TRIPLE Stage FIFO Buffering in the 800 / 808 / G98 versus the SINGLE Stage FIFO buffering in the 861 / G68 and Speakers. They have always stressed that this led to the lowest possible Jitter levels at Source, ever BEFORE getting to the Jitter inducing SPDIF interface. Their point was that the EARLIEST that potential jitter could be minimised, then that had potential benefits further down the equipment chain

The fact that the 800 / 808 / G98 can also then encrypt this Stream (usually Upsampled) into MHR (which also has a Jitter minimization benefit across the SPDIF interface), only adds to the argument as to why there MAY be audible performance differences between different Sources (e.g. Meridian Players and SB3)

These points have been mentioned on at least 3 occasions in different threads over the past 6-9 months

As to whether there are any actual audible differences, then that may be best left to the individual user............

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