Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Huge Meridian News today - Acquisition of Sooloos!

I found that things like disc ripping and tag editing dragged to a crawl with large libraries, presumably because itunes was rewriting its entire XML database file on every change. That may well have been fixed by now, I haven't used iTunes as a primary library manager for at least a couple of years now.

300GB of my 385GB is classical music. I admit that getting consistent metadata input into iTunes was a chore when I ripped my discs, but that was the fault of the databases not iTunes.

I am likely in a very small minority here, but IMHO, for Meridian / Soolos to justify the type of Pricing they will likely look for, the following will be MINIMUM Requirements

[color:#000099]MUSIC[/color]
• Playback and Optimized Storage of Lossless Tracks Accurately Ripped from Redbook 44/16 CD`s
• Playback of 96/24 Material (either Ripped from DVD-A`s) or preferably the same and newer Material Downloaded from e.g. Soolos Site (even for a Fee)
• A better than iTunes / Sonos etc. User Interface
• Ability to Stream different Tracks to Multiple Zones / Rooms throughout a house

MOVIES
• Ability to Play and Store High Bit Rate 1080p/24 Movies to at least the quality available on Bluray
• High Bit Rate Lossless Soundtracks to accompany the above

CONNECTIVITY
• The ability to Send the above Music and Movie Streams to our existing Meridian Processors in the Highest Quality, most Jitter Free, most Transparent and Elegant manner possible (DisplayPort and MHR will play a significant part here)

QUESTION-MARKS
• Will the Major Record Companies get on board with Lossless 44/16 and 96/24 versions of their Catalogue being stored on a “Server” (and thus easier to “Pirate” than presently) Possibly!! But most of the Companies will have to come a very long way from the 256k Non-DRM Material that they are currently comfortable with

• Will the Movie Studios allow Distribution of their Catalogue in the High Quality versions outlined above. I`m not sure how willing the Studios will be to allow this (the usual paranoia about Piracy and Copying) but the recent “Better than Blu” Initiative shows some promise. Distribution of 40-50Gb Movies on Encrypted Hard Disks (3 times Data Rate of Bluray) shows the Studios are at least considering this whole area, but their past reluctance and Piracy Paranoia is not at all promising (http://www.hiddenwires.co.uk/resourcesnews2008/news20080929-04.html)

• Even if the Music and Movie Companies deliver / don`t stand in the way of the above, Meridian / Soolos need to join the above “Better than Blu” consortium and LEAD the way in this whole area and not trail the pack as it currently does on everything to do with Bluray

Hopefully Meridian / Soolos can deliver on most or all of the above, but IMHO until they do, they won`t find many takers AT THEIR PRICES!! The competition offered by iTunes / Squeezebox / Sonos / NAS Boxes / Media Players is simply too strong to just arrive at the party with a “Me Too” solution of Lossless 44/16 Music and SD-DVD Storage.

The market moves forward at an inexorable pace and Meridian needs to get out in front of it. They cannot afford to trail it badly and then expect to charge a higher price for their solution as well!!!

They`ve shown that they can do this in the past (DVD-A and DD/DTS Soundtracks delivered Digitally to our Processors; first Real CD Player; DSP Speakers; DSP Algorithms etc.) It`s time to show they can again be a Pioneer in a fast changing world

It is certainly technically easy but it takes talent and intelligence to do it right.

Kal [/quote]

Exactly true. But, perhaps because I'm a programmer myself, I'd think it takes far less talent and intelligence than, say, assembling DSP hardware and firmware that supports Trifield, apodizing, room correction, etc in a usable package. That stuff seems like magic to me, magic that only a few people know how to pull off.
[/quote]No disrespect intended but this is relatively easy for a programmer. It is, however, difficult to accomplish without appreciation and understanding of how humans search, find and use information and, in general, of ergonomics. Thus, the talents have little to do, directly, with programming. That's what makes success uncommon.

Kal

If they do this without including multichannel and SACD, it will be seen poorly by the rest of the world. SACD is a more successful medium than DVD-A.

Kal

Perhaps a better way to express this was "Better than Redbook" Music Replay. Insert your acronym of choice, but High Res Music Replay and Storage would be the goal

Ronnie, I said the same a couple of days ago but some think DVD-A is dead therefore end of story....don't bother.

Whatever M decide to do with this opportunity it has to really give the user access to all currently known forms of data.

Perhaps a better way to express this was "Better than Redbook" Music Replay. Insert your acronym of choice, but High Res Music Replay and Storage would be the goal [/quote]Agreed. That's why I sent back the Sooloos I had for review. For CD, feeding a digital input on the 861, it was a pleasure.

Kal

Does the SPDIF digital audio output mean that I can use the 3 little Meridian blue cables to run into my G68, which I understand is the ultimate input into my G68, or do i have to modify something to achieve this?

If I download my music library onto the Sooloos, can the Sooloss then transfer the complete library to my Sansa MP3, which apparently accepts FLAC so I don't have to do this process twice?

Well, not to beat a dead horse, but I consider the databases to be a big part - perhaps the most critical part - of these kinds of products, and Apple certainly has the resources and market clout to license or develop better data than the user-supplied info on Gracenote. That they haven't, I think, speaks to the fact that none of the serious free/affordable competition has either (dBpoweramp is an exception, but they only license the basic AMG data, not the advanced data you see in Sooloos).

But better data wouldn't help much as long as iTunes itself doesn't allow the database to be extended with new categories of tags. What I want is classical music data that includes Conductor, Ensemble, Work, Work type, Opus, performance date, Artists, instrument types, etc. The only product I'm aware of that allows you to explicitly create tags (and use them in browsing) for such info is J River. But entering all that stuff for every CD, and making sure its absolutely consistent in spelling, etc, is just beyond my level of patience. I'd rather pay someone else to do it right, for everybody, and have us all do other things with our time

I may just have to give up and buy a Sooloos after all.

Not quite - the SPDIF (or analog) output of Sooloos is stereo-only. No multichannel outputs from the current product. So you'd run a single cable into one of the other (not multichannel) inputs on your G68.

Nope, not at the moment anyway. If it isn't currently supporting hi-rez multi-channel, then it would only offer a single SPDIF output. You'd only be able to use one of your blue cables.

Happy Trails!
Vince@Freewheelcycle.com