Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems HD621 Set Up Questions

Hey all of you suffering from "crackling" rear channels with your HD621's- I've had what I suspect is the same problem when I added a second player requiring a 3x SPDIF connection to my 861v4. Are all of you that are currently experiencing this problem using both sets of multi-channel inputs? In rather scary fashion I discovered that "jiggling" all the coax SPDIF connections at the rear of the IE42 card would worsen or lessen the crackling depending on how I tilted my head and stuck out my tongue! Seriously though, the inconsistant psuedo random nature of the problem is rather distressing. BTW, the problem is exclusive to the D4,5,6 input set. Both players (a 598 and an SFogg modded HD-XA2 work fine on the D1,2,3 input while both exhibit the random crackling when moved to the second input...

Happy Trails!
Vince@Freewheelcycle

Vince

My HD621 goes to MD1 (i.e. D1,D2 and D3)! That said there could be a fault with some cards under some conditions.

It would be interesting to run a poll to include the following so we can have some idea of the scale of the issues and other facts

HD621 before video processor
HD621 after video processor
No video processor
Video processor: Radiance XD, Radiance XE, VP50, VP50 Pro, other
Crackling speakers
Green screen
Other issues

Rob

NB The reason Meridian gave me for putting the HD621 before the VP was that by stripping out the audio it reduced the interference with the video signal!

I just got my HD621 and have not set it up yet but want to report that a long time ago I had a problem with my 800 and I resolved it by moving its 3 smart link connections to the 4-5-6 connectors as opposed to the 1-2-3. I was hoping to use the HD621 on the 1-2-3 but we will have to see I guess...

Try swapping D3 and D1 and see if the crackle moves. If it stays on rears it's prob the card, if it moves it's prob the HD621.

I doubt it's the card since I have not read a single report with all the modded setups. Or for that matter any Meridian dvda players either. Which both use the same inputs.

George

swapped D1 and D3 and the crackling stays on the rears. Good suggestion as seems to be the HD621

Rob

It's a glitch in mconfig. Just ignore the error message. Also make sure that you check the source setting in mconfig for your G68. It will probably have defaulted to "last valid" so you need to set it to the appropriate MD input.

I think I have. :-) At first I ran the TIVO through my Radiance and had problems. I now have the TIVO box connected directly to the HD621. The reason I'm not sure that everything is ok is that many times when the broadcast information says that a program is broadcast in DD stereo, the stream display on my G68 shows AC3 3/2.1 which is DD 5.1. Don't know what to make of it but the G68 sees a multichannel stream and applies an MC DSP.

Are you sure how your DISH handles sound streams? With my TIVO you can only set it to DD or PCM. In the latter case it down samples DD5.1 to pcm 2.0.

Did you check in your mconfig to make sure that the source is the appropriate mulitchannel digital input on your 568? I'm not sure how the mconfig works with the 568 but there is a funny glitch with the 68s and 861s. When you make the connection with the HD621 it defaults to last valid which in my case resulted in only 2 channels coming through instead of 6.

Hi Jack,

Thanks for the feedback. I did confirm with Dish both by email and telephone that HDMI passes DD5.1 and have tried the various Audio menus in the Dish.

To keep in perspective with my problem, 6-channel PCM from my PS3 works perfectly. DD does not work properly with either my PS3 or Sat.

If you (or anyone else) has a chance, could you please play a DD disc through your BD player and see if your processors says it is receiving AC3?

Thanks,
George

MConfig 621 hint

Scenario:

Primary connection = HDMI from source to HD621.
Secondary connection (for CD phantom source) = coax from source to processor D7.
SmartLink connection from HD621 to G68 MD1.

Problem:

MConfig selects the D7 physical (coax) connection and does not allow you to select the multi-channel input (MD1).

Reason:

MConfig latches on to a direct input from the source in preference to an indirect (i.e. via HD621) input.

Solution:

For any source connected to the HD621, don't make a secondary connection from source to processor. Fool MConfig by making the secondary connection to a "dummy" intermediary. I use my "Radiance" component that I've built into MConfig:

Secondary connection = coax from source to "Radiance".
Coax connection from "Radiance" to G68 D7.

You can now select either MD1 or D7 for the physical source.

You can't configure the PS3 to simultaniously support decoding TrueHD/DTS MA to PCM without it also decoding DD/DTS to PCM. Unless you don't mind reconfiguring the PS3 per movie type. Either PCM over HDMI is on or off.

For those with SONOS, Squeezebox or other digital music servers AND a RadianceXD/XE I am curious as to:

1. Have you done a comparison of the audio quality between a) connecting the music server directly to the G61/861 and b) connecting the music server to the HD621 and then to the G61/861.

2. If the answer to 1. is yes then what have you concluded about the comparison in music quality (i.e. are the apodizing filters and upsampling) noticeably better / worthwhile.

The reason that I ask is that I am having my HD621 installed on Friday and need to know how to have things wired and before suggesting doing the A/B comparison myslef part of the diffculty / problem with this is that my Crestron control panel is being re-programmed at the same time which allows very little (read nay) time for a proper comparison...

TIA.

How would you connect a Sonos/SB3 to a HD621 ? I don't recall any inputs other than HDMI.

If you're just after the answer to the "what's going to get apozing filters next" question or "will my 861/G68 get it" or "will my DSP's get it"...then you're in good company.