Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems The Quasi-Official Meridian CEDIA Q+A Topic.

Only regarding HDMI I think...

Well said Chris.

This problem has been solved (thank you St. Des!):

We removed the option of setting a “frame-delay” from our processors some time ago. However, we did not update the Legacy program to accommodate the change. Hence, changing the setting provokes the errant behaviour and it appears as a bug. As the program is an installation tool, rather than an actual “product”, we will continue to live with the anomaly.

Well time moves on...there are no firm paths for Meridian users/buyers/customers to gravat towards in using Meridian equipment for the purpose intended. While waiting for Meridian to land somewhere I have moved forward and purchased a dedicate stereo preamp. ....sounds very nice....a magnitude of improvedment over th 861v4 as an analog device...triggering/controlling appears to be a paid....but sonically the Ayre KX-R...cold out of the box easily trumps the 861 v4....at lease in the analog side....now I have to learn how to make these things work nicely together...

John

Just for my curiosity (and apologies for not trawling your previous posts) but what exactly were you waiting for from Meridian that has been satisfied by your new preamp?

Two points, firstly a belated thank you to John Kotches and M for an informative and useful Q&A session...excellent work.

Secondly, to hikejohn. A quick browse through your 20 posts since April shows only one post where you made no complaint about Meridian, and actually asked a question. The rest suggest that you'd be better served elsewhere, perhaps on one of the dedicated two channel forums? Have you put your many concerns directly to Meridian themselves? It's pretty clear that this is a brand which is not meeting your needs, so why not just sell the 861 (as you noted back in April), put all these gripes behind you, and set up camp afresh on the Ayre forum? We'll wish you all the best.

Cheers

George

Couldn't have said it better.

Thanks !!!

Hikejohn, I too have used an 861v4 and "purist" two channel gear together and apart.

IME the 861v4 won't match a purist two channel rig for pure two channel playback. In other posts on other forums I've said that if purist two channel is a 100, then an 861v4 in pure two channel is a 90.

However, if you compare an 861v4 running Trifield to a purist two channel rig the equation changes: purist two channel at 100 and 861v4 Trifield at 110 or 120.

I try to get the best of both: for redbook CD I run my left and right through a purist two channel chain, and, add to that the surrounds from Trifield via an 861v4 chain. That trounces purist two channel.

If you want stereo only then the 861v4 is likely not the right kit, and this not the right forum. If you want the best sonics possible then you'll need to abandon pure two channel, just as I abandoned my high end Nakamichi cassette gear two decades back.

Well said! The only thing I would add is CD versus Vinyl. I have tried some of the top analog preamps and for CD, at least, I find the 2-channel performance of 861 to be very close. Redigitizing of analog sources is where i think 861 starts to fall down.

IIRC, only the IA45 card has 96/24 sampling. The standard stereo ADC cards are only 48kHz sampling. If true, this means that the G68 which has 96/24 sampling for all analogue inputs might better the 861v4 (depending on the quality of the DACs).

I gave my son my 96/24 d5k's and had Shawn Fogg do his mod to an Oppo 980. As a purely digital 2 channel system it very good indeed. I spent a couple of hours listening with my son during a recent visit and I was really surprised at how good that system was. Admittedly I'm a DSP speaker fan but still, in a 2 channel system using digital sources ( redbook, SACD and DVD-A )I'm not sure how much better it can get. I'd love to figure a way to borrow that Oppo and take it to my local M dealer and try it with a pair of D5K2's and even D7K2's which he has on the floor. My bottom line--running a modded Oppo directly into DSP's will give any high end preamp/amp analogue speaker combination a run for it's money using digital sources.

Ken

What I desire is the best of both worlds...thus a stereo pre amp with a processor pass thru....and then the best processor capable of handling Bluray...and ideally with the correct unit triggering to run this system. I agree with you that Trifield works very nicely...but on pure analog then a separate top quality preamp is the way to go...which ultimately is what I have done and listen to more critically....who knows what a "live movie sound" is...