I have been lurking forever ;-) I work in technology and what Meridian did, just made so much sense to me, and it still does; for example lossless data transmission on digital cables at $1/ft vs $100/ft for analog cables. I have had a 500 series system for 9 years (568, 596, 3xdsp5500 and 4xdsp33), and contemplating what to do next. The half life of products in the digital age is getting shorter and shorter. Bluray will come and go - it may even last longer that DVD-Audio. But today I am being penalized if I want to integrate Bluray into my homogenous Meridian system, and to be able to take advantage of higher resolutions (eg HDMI) as well as internet integration e.g. Bluray Live. Oh, but what about radio you ask ? Today, through sites like www.radiotime.com, I can get streamed radio from just about anywhere. Do I still need a tuner at home?

There are two real options - produce a highly integrated single box that can be cost effectively replaced more frequently that every 10-15 years, which is the expected half life of an old analog receiver 30 years ago. Or go very modular using commodity components. Not modular as in series 800 since it is not commodity component based. Today Linksys has a IP-PBX for 16 nodes that is the size of a paperback book and sells for less than $400. For example, use Gigabit Ethernet or 802.11n for transmission, both for content streams and control (see Sonos). What would the rear of the next gen controller look like? What plugs would you expect? If it were me, 4 HDMI/displayport inputs, 1 HDMI out, and one Ethernet jack. The Ethernet would plug into a standard Gigabit Ethernet switch and Wi-Fi router. Even in today`s G series, there is a huge overhead (space, design, production, test) for all that analog gunk on the rear. What about amplification? Great analog amps will be around for a long time. But digital amplification will get better and simpler and more efficient - cell phones and portable media players will force that to happen. Enthusiasts will continue to pay for great speakers. Many kids will live with the earphones that come with their iPods, but Sennheiser will also sell phones that cost more than the iPod. Music today and tomorrow will be stored and streamed. The USB port on the G-Series is a start, but it makes the G look like a USB speaker. Yes it was easier, but why not just adopt the media streaming protocols. I believe that the reality is that M will have to move from being a proprietary DSP software house in to a general purpose software house working on open protocols and adopted standards. Eg. MHR was early, but HDMI won. DVD-A, SACD, HDDVD were all interesting, but BR won. Get over it.

Meridian was the digital clairvoyant in the analog age. But we are now in the digital era; what will Meridian be?