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

I've seen CAT6 cable that had individually shielded pairs. Same impedance.

Was it a braided or foil shield?

John,

"Even 10 channels, 24bits @ 192K only comes out to 46 Mbits /second which can run across Cat (not Cat5e or Cat6) at 100m with no problems."

Not that it changes your point but 10 channels of 24 bit @ 192k would be a little over 61Mbits/second. Each sample is 32 bits long carrying up to 24 bits of audio data with 8 preamble bits.

Shawn

We should also note that this isn't ethernet while we're at it.

There is no possible way in my mind that an association with Robert Plant could be a bad thing. Maybe that makes me emotionally retarded or unable to match my clothes- but so what? The man made some of the best rock n roll music ever. Thats the point though- the people in the know, they know its Meridian. We know its Meridian. The problem is the general does not and will not. M needs to bide its time now, keep it tight, then when times get good again, really go after the business.

I agree with you about Robert Plant. I thought the criticism of him was gratuitously rude and lacked clear criteria. So the association that I complained about was with stupid rudeness, not with Robert Plant.

F80 with dock on order. I really tried looking at the other less expensive options.. I took a breather around the block and Bob's words echoed in my brain;

- You know you want one!

Yes I do..

- It will compliment your 8k's in the beautiful Modena Giallo finish.

Ok!



Hopefully Santa Bob has time to ship it before Christmas eve..

With the announcement of a new Denon universal spinner, whither Meridian?

[naive?]

I've been worried about Meridian's future direction for some time from the perspective of the company's existing customer base. No matter what is said publically by Meridian and no matter what genuine good intentions are expressed by individuals working there, I think the company may be heading upmarket at the expense of the enthusist (if that's what it costs).

Of course, Meridian can do whatever it wants to and needs to do to survive. I just believe that the traditional hifi enthusiast is now a miniscule blip on its radar. The danger for Meridian is that, if the traditional fan base declines, is the brand equity at risk?

Cessation of DVD-A support by the format's most enthusiastic and important champion in its more "affordable" range looks even more embarrassing with universal players continuing to be the norm at the high end. My gut feeling is that when a Meridian Blu-Ray player finally arrives, it will only have CD, Blu-Ray and DVD-V support. Yes, DVD-A and SACD are unimportant formats in the overall grand scheme, but I think Meridian has past the point of catering to the enthusiast: There probably aren't many DVD-A and SACD collections on yachts. But how many 598, G91 and G98 owners won't be replacing these with another Meridian spinner?

Finally, the reduced dealership in the UK cannot do anything positive for single component (and particularly two-channel) sales, even if there were good reasons for slimming it down. If your local dealer doesn't stock the Meridian G08.2, are you really going to travel some distance to visit one who does? For the life of me, I can't work out why there isn't a middle tier of dealers which is entitled to sell a constrained set of G stereo components and entry-level DSP speakers. Many on this forum who are wealthy enough to own incredible Meridian surround systems started small.

[/naive?]

Who cares about DVD-A? I mean, really. Meridian still gets it's slice of the pie in the form of MLP licensing without having to waste money developing players. People who want to play DVD-A already have their players. And Meridian still support their customers who own their DVD-A players.

SACD is a broken format. Why support it, ever. DVD-A doesn't bring much in audible terms to the table that isn't available in redbook. And even then poor mastering can degrade a DVD-A well below what it's capable of.

Meridian is absolutely right to ignore these formats and move on.

As for dealers, etc, I agree more that without exposure how will people come to hear about Meridian. But then again, my exposure to them was always at shows, through word of mouth and through magazine reviews, not dealers. When it was time for me to try Meridian out they organised a private demo in a stately home. Can't ask much more than that

Mark

Ok, I'll ask the question another way. Meridian championed DVDA and it failed, but not after Meridian "persuaded" many customers to go down that road. In contrast to HD DVD vs. Blu-Ray, Meridian *actively* engaged in the DVDA/SACD format war and promoted a format whose success was not guaranteed. Does Meridian have an obligation to continue supporting the format when other manufacturers still do? How many discs do you have to own before you get pixxed that the next generation spinner won't play them and don't buy Meridian again?

The fact that they have admitted the format is a failure is another issue as is the fact that Meridian doesn't have the scale of the likes of Denon. Was the engineering cost really that great?

SACD. Maybe broken (how?), maybe flawed, but there is a much stronger catalog out there than for DVD-A, particularly for classical.

Personally, I have a handful of DVDAs and I have an Oppo to play them. I don't own a single SACD. My gut feeling is that CD with added apodizing will do the job. DVDA and SACD may have been defeated by the iPod, but CD carried on regardless. Anything Blu-Ray can offer may be a bonus.

Did they persuade? In my case I actively asked them for *years* for a DVD-A solution but by the time theirs arrived I already had my DVD-Upgrades hacked player so never bought the Meridian solution because by the time it arrived DVD-A was going through it's death throes, IMO.


Because Meridian had a vested interested. MLP. And they knew that SACD was flawed and wanted the best sound for their customers; PCM.


Of course not. Supporting customers who own your DVD-A players though is another matter and we can expect that Meridian will continue to support those customers years down the line after the other manufacturers have given up support.


Where's the Meridian vinyl player? People will either keep their old players or look to others to supply. Meridian has no obligation here.


Who knows. But it seems clear that Meridian know that there is no money for them in this field or they'd still be in it.


SACD is broken - the flaws have been exposed many times since it's release. Plenty of articles out there to read about it. There's an even huger catalogue of vinyl out there. And we all know that vinyl is extremely flawed, but people continue to buy it and listen to it. Should Meridian also support that format with a spinner? No. Meridian understand digital. They understand that Redbook done properly can accurately convey virtually all we hear and they put their efforts into delivering that in the hope that consumers understand this also. Clearly there is still some work to do here because people still buy SACD (and vinyl).


There you go. Meridian again are upping the ante with Redbook making their kit even more desirable than any other in the market place for the dominant delivery format, CD. And once we have the M HDMI box we will have the best solution available for the HD audio formats.

Mark

I think they certainly carried many customers with them, most not as enlightened as yourself. Had a substantial portion of the current DVD-A catalogue already been released when M released the 800v3?

"Virtually" is probably the key word here; Bob Stuart has stated clearly that a channel that attains audible transparency will be equivalent to a PCM channel that uses:

� 58kHz sampling rate, and
� 14-bit representation with appropriate noise shaping, or
� 20-bit representation in a flat noise floor, i.e. a ‘rectangular` channel

and that:

� The CD channel with 44.1kHz 16-bit coding (even with noise shaping to extend the resolution) is inadequate
� Even 48kHz sampling is not quite high enough

Necessity breeds invention. Clearly the goal is now to make 16/44.1 sound as heavenly as possible, but I wonder whether the (very worthy) efforts into RBCD replay would have happened if DVDA had succeeded?

Edit: What is interesting is that the most realistic digital audio I have ever heard was with the DTS HD MA 48kHz Kingdom of Heaven soundtrack, but maybe I'm just fishing...