Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Will Meridian survive?

You guys do love to speculate negatively

For what it's worth, according to the Wikipedia entry on recession: "The IMF estimates that global recessions seem to occur over a cycle lasting between 8 and 10 years." Meridian is 30 years old, which means they've weathered through a few recessions in their history and have the experience to take the necessary steps to ride this one. I see nothing different this time round.

Commentators on the current financial crisis are pointing fingers at doomsayers for creating panic and a self fulfilling prophecy. Let's not contribute to that on Meridian's behalf.

Mark

Maybe a bit off-topic, but I see similarities ... Marillion survived(*) by communicating with their fans and let them finance new studio albums ... will Meridian survive they also need to (learn to) communicate with their customer base ...

(*) different crisis, but a crisis nonetheless.

Well, they are offering 5 yr warranty on new purchases and have just had a major install.

Here http://Meridian.connectdigitalllp.c...-installation-at-highgate-cemetery-.aspx

and Here http://Meridian.connectdigitalllp.co.uk/news/2008/10/31/two-years-additional-warranty.aspx

All signs of intending to be around.

Cheers, Chris (Glass half full and filling up)

Just for the record, I already own Meridian products for 12 years (started with a 565), but recently the company does not offer any products that I am interested in ... ofcourse this is my personal view, but there will be others that feel the same. Personally I am not interested in a CD or DVD spinner anymore ... just watched Kung Fu Panda and Wall*E in HD, there is really no going back to SD!

Assuming Blu-Ray succeeds, I'm sure Meridian will produce a BR spinner. Some will buy it; I'll stay with my PS3 at a tenth of the cost... One of Meridian's challenges is to convince enough customers that there are real benefits in spending 10x the money. But spinners are only one part of M's portfolio.

@Mark_H: Negative maybe. My recollection though is that Meridian has only survived in the past through buy-outs. It is different this time in that the company had a large injection of capital *before* the global economy went pear-shaped.

I wonder how Meridian would handle the seemingly endless stream of firmware updates required for blu-ray players? Would be quite a burden I would imagine to keep up??


Time will tell.

Mark

Are these firmware updates typically for (a) features held back for time-to-market reasons and enabled post-release, (b) bug-fixes, or (c) fixes to cope with badly authored discs.

(a) and (b) shouldn't be a problem, but Meridian has historically resisted tacit approval of poorly authored discs.

According tto the updated News page :

http://www.Meridian-audio.com/news.aspx

M are joining forces with Saks in New York to push the F80 . Doesnt l;ook like their plans to join the HD movement are imminent does it ??

~M~

A colleague at work was asking me about the F80 at lunch today....he had gone shopping for a DAB radio in a London department store and had spotted this "cheap and nasty looking" device made by "that hi-fi company beginning with M".

He was wondering why it cost so much? I explained but it seems that the Ferrari beauty is not even skin deep. Perhaps we are blinded by our faith?

Apologies in advance for the dissertation.

I've been re-examining a few points about my system, and asking myself a few questions about what it is I'm paying for, and what I want.

It was only a couple of years ago that I considered paying �270 for a 518 to be a massive investment and a leap of faith, and I still have that perspective once in a while.

I've been troubled by how cheap it is to get into HD (a PS3 and a �600 LCD), how much you get in a �500 receiver nowadays, and also how bloody big most of the system is (I'm looking at you M2500). Plus the fact that a downsize would give me a sizeable cash injection that would pay for the bloody timing chain tensioners which some idiot decided should be made of plastic in a V8 engined car!

But I made my mind up last week, listening to a squeezebox in a spare few hours.

Meridian stuff costs a fortune. An obscene amount. But it sounds like nothing else I've ever heard. Every so often, I hear those little things in a recording that I never heard before (Michael Stipe's smacking of lips before singing a verse of Everbody Hurts, what feels like real pain in Alison Goldfrapp's voice on A&E, a million other -80dB subtleties) and I realise what it is I paid for, and what it is I can no longer do without.

Meridian are behind on HD and network audio. But few others have really mastered 44kHz 16 bit yet! I'll continue to pay to be occasionally emotionally moved by the music I'm listening to.

I had (and still have) worries about whether Meridian ever will be able to offer lossless audio from Bluray. That's why I delayed on going DSP. The decision I made was that not having that better than having worse audio on everything else.

I admit that's a fanboy rant. But I'm not an uninformed fanboy who hasn't tried the alternatives. Some of the alternatives are also excellent, but they are more compromised and (unfortunately) I know it.

I'm lucky to be well enough off to be able to afford this stuff second hand occasionally. It's a major purchase for me and the opportunity costs huge, but I will not compromise. There are many people better off than I am who are of the same opinion, and can afford the best brand new. That is why Meridian will survive this downturn. For these people, there is no competition.

This is from the website on the Cemetery install, and said by the club mixer who I'd never heard of:

"I've had [Meridian systems] since I was in my twenties," says Elliott in a recent Times Magazine interview. "They're the ultimate for sound."

Can you see this type of person going elsewhere? There is a (still large) afluent market who are heavily loyal to the brand because they are the only people to do things properly from a digital perspective, and have the analogue knowledge to complete the signal chain.

Most people would be thrilled with a Cambridge Audio system that sounds impressive for �750 a box, but would they be motivated to spend that much and can they be bothered to listen to music?

Striving for a better and better system can be obsessive and irrational, and often value for money is not considered. Meridian appeals to those of us who want the best. I do not want to spend my money on a car, I want to enjoy great music.

The F80 is astoundingly good for a portable system. I never tire of listening to it and do not yearn for something better. I will never own a 810 system but how fantastic that Meridian can produce something that allegedly has twice the resolution of anything else on sale. Both are the best available for what they do.

Yes, it will take time and investment for Meridian to update their entire range to similar standards. But they are rolling out great products and have promised significant upgrades to existing users (how many companies do that?). Ground-breaking filters and balanced digital connections are way ahead of the competition. Let us all be proud of what they are achieving. What exactly is it that people feel Meridian are not doing or offering?

The problem for Meridian is that it does not have a high profile where it would count i.e. in the hi-fi community opinion-leaders. For some reason the magazines do not talk about it, review their products or give awards, with a few notable exceptions. Instead of moaning we all ought to write to the magazines extolling the virtues of our kit, challenging poor reviews and asking for more reviews.

You should worry less as there are now proven non-Meridian solutions.