Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Any questions for M @ Cedia

I was not really too late. But all the open questions i had were already in the list.
Hopefully we get real answers on the questions.

Jaco

Stacey,
thanks. As its a friends setup- mines still on V2.whatever I cant remember right now- I only have his word to go on. But if the upsampling really somehow eliminates the bass as he says then its something that would keep me from adding the 800 to my HT right now.

have a great show
- Jerry

I will post the answers that I got sometime later. (after I sleep.)

Not all questions had answers.

Not every question had an answer. So I will only list those that had answers. If there is no answer then they simply had no information to share at this time.

- >8 channels for 861
- Room correction for 861
- Native 192/24 playback

The above three are closely related. First, Bob said there are already more than 8 channels and he is correct. Of course he means the height channels, but he knew what was meant.

For 192 playback to work, they need an interface. There are a couple of ways to go but that has not been decided yet.

All three of the above are dependent on work being done now.

I do know that if Meridian had released the room correction card they did a few years back, everyone who purchased it would be upset because it would never work at 96 kHz. You would have had to throw away the old hardware and purchase a new card.

The above items are coming but no time frame yet.

- 596 upgrade plans

They don't have any specific info yet, but they may offer a couple of different directions. ie progressive scan or DVD-A. (Or both)

- FAQs on how presets work under the hood.

Any details they post can also be read by their competitors. While I was speaking with Bob, Steven Stone from SGHT came into the room to ask Bob how how the EQ and depth worked. Talk about perfect timing! Bob explained EQ, which was covered here a while back in detail.

- Upsample DD & DTS w/o M player

The upsampling is done at the time the signal is input. (ie on the input card.) They can't upsample either DD or DTS until it has been decoded and by then it is already passed the input card.

- SACD support (Even if DSD to PCM)

Did I even have to ask? Not sure if you saw the announcement about DVD-A on Windows. Creative is getting ready to release a multichannel card and it will come with a DVD-A player. I have been told there will be many more coming.

Also, Denon just announced that they are not going to offer SACD on the 9000/5803. It was planned, but they have been told that they cannot by Philips/Sony.

- Delta between industry standard and M support for it.

What is that standard going to be? 1394, DVI, or HDMI? When everyone is using an adopted standard, they will offer one too. Even then, they will most likely continue to offer the Smart Link as they feel it sounds better.

- Ambisonic flag in DVD-A?

This is up to the content providers. They have to set the flag.

- Ambisonic 2nd order decoding/roadmap?
- Multiple height channel derived from B, G or G+2 format.

Waiting for the software to come first.

- DVI Outputs.

There will be a new 480p card, perhaps by xmas, that will have DVI (w/ HDCP) out. If your DLP does not offer HDCP (Sim2), then you will not see an image.

- 598 PAL (Based on Arcam announcement)

I believe I covered this.

- De-clicking for LP.
- De-emphase for shellacks

Find a used Meridian 601, this will do what you want. You can probably buy one on eBay or audiogon.

- Lack of bass when DD/DTS are upsampled. (Cinema preset is set to +10)

Keep Cinema set to LFE+10 and bass will be correct for movies. Keep discrete at LFE 0 and music will be correct. (complicated subject) There is some work that needs to be done to make both the same when LFE is set to 0. (ie if you don't like seeing a different value for music and film.)

bottom line, leave LFE default and sound will be correct.

Meridian introduced some new products at the show. DSP7000, 880 Music Server, and DSP in-wall speakers. In fact, many companies had new in-walls. (Most said that this is the #1 request)

7ks are a hybrid of 6k (and 5k5) and 8k. Cabinet technology, DSP filters, and tweeter are from 8ks. The amps are hot-rod'ed 6k amps. The midrange is also from the 6k. They are about 1" shorter than a 5k5. At the base they are 1.5" longer and 1" wider. Because of the cabinet shape, they are much less intrusive than the 5k5s. They look small and sweet. (Possibly late November) $27.5k MSRP for black and ~$29k for color.

The music server was really cool. It rips all of your CDs and stores them on harddrives using MLP compression. The fully loaded has 3 80GB hard drives, which can store around 800 CDs. It also can do MP3 encoding. It has a nice GUI and can grab all the disc data and cover art from CDDB. So it needs a network connection.

I believe it also outputs video at high resolution rates. So, lets hope they have a 16:9 mode like 1280x720.

It also offers multi-zone output for up to 4 zones. I believe this also sends over ethernet. If so, you can plug in a wireless box and you can stream music around your house with 802.11b. For this to work, you need an external box at the receiving in. I was not sure if the output of this will will be analog only or include digital. I hope it also includes digital. You could then have some of those DSP in-walls and drive them with this box. How cool would that be?

I believe a typical 10Mbps wireless network can handle all 4 streams, if they are ~1.5Mbps each. The MLP decoding is all done at the server.

I believe this will be out early next year, probably in time for CES. It was hooked up to the pair of 7ks.

The in-wall speakers look like the DSP33 layout, but they follow another numbering scheme. I believe they plan to offer a whole DSP in-wall line down the road. This will use DSP correction to take care of any issues caused by being in-wall.

The other thing I was shown was an upated 480p card that has a DVI output. This will be for 800 only. They are still looking into how to handle 500 series. The DVI output will use HDCP, so you need HDCP on the receiving in. The new InFocus 7200 and Marantz VP12S2 both offer HDCP on their DVI in and should work. The new Sim2 and Faroudja DLPs do NOT have HDCP and will not work with this card.

I have all of the literature on the above products. Once I dig it out of my suite case, I will post more info.

[This message has been edited by sspears (edited 09-30-2002).]

one comment for folks who are eager to get DVI out of their 800 (et. al.).

if M is shipping 480p out, then whatever you're feeding is likely to have to scale it up (to 768, or whatever else you've got).

there's been some discussion on avsforum about comparing DVI and analog video connections, and it appears that IRL, whether this looks better or not has more to do with the processor (be it external or internal to your display device (DLP, PDP, etc.)) that is scaling the image up (to 768 or whatever).

so i wouldn't get overly excited about a 480p DVI output. there's a reasonable probability that you may not even be able to tell the difference between that and, say, 480p component.

doody.

PS: stellar info stacey, thank you!

[This message has been edited by MrDoody (edited 09-30-2002).]

Great work, much appreciated, thanks.

I'm very interested in hearing the new DSP 7000's in action as well as the DSP in wall rears.

Also very useful were your comments on the lack of HDCP on the DVI in on the new Sim 2 HD2 DLP. Was the Barco Cineversum on demo there? I think they have HDCP and the HD2 version will be available Jan-Feb.

Hopefully a DVI output upgrade will be available on the 500 series. Which is better DVI output or SDI output?

Thanks again

Saf

Stacey,
thanks- your efforts are very much appreciated

do you know if the behind screen/ inwall eqs from the 5k5s are present in the 7ks?

if one used MLP for that 880, would the resulting sound quality be just as good as if playing out of a CD player, digital out? It would seem to me that yes it would, because MLP is lossless. But Id like to know what you think/know.

very exciting stuff!

- Jerry

7k should have the same speaker eq options as other DSPs.

Yes, 880 should be equal to 800 playback of CDs. At least the press release says "the 880 is exactly the same as playing the same track on an 800-series disc player."

The 880 will not rip DVD-A or DVD-V.

It says it will store 750 hours of stereo audio, nearly a 1000 CDs.

Looks like I was wrong about its multizone using RJ45. It seems the multizone is via standard analog or digital cable. (It is always a problem when you are up for 28 hours.)

You can also get it with analog inputs (has digital as standard.) to archive other sources, like LP. (will need phono input for that.) MSRP is $17-$20k US.

The DSP in wall is called the DSP420. I did not spend much time looking at them. I am not sure how you power them. The MSRP is $5k US.

Thanks for all your answers

Stacey,
Thanks for the report.

Jaco

Great work....big time thanks.

The 880 sounds really exciting. Was there any hint of approximate pricing or release schedule ?

Rgds

Nick

Stacey,
thanks again. will the 880 be able to play different audio streams to different zones at the same time? this would be a big benefit as well as being able to archive the entire CD collection at CD quality. price is expensive- but lets face it, all top line Meridian stuff has big prices but also delivers big performance.

28 hours huh?........ I hope to introduce myself at the CES if you will be available.

[This message has been edited by JerryL (edited 10-01-2002).]