Meridian 218 - MQA - Roon

Having been there, I agree with Daniel - Apple Airport technology was the source of many dropout issues with both my 218, MS200 and a couple of Airplay endpoints (I think some of it was interference from neighbours Wi-Fi). I ended up drilling holes and running cables for the Meridian kit and replacing my Apple Airport devices for Google WiFi. Roon and the Meridian endpoints all hard-wired into an unmanaged switch that also has a Google Wifi connected to enable the Airplay and roon remotes.

All works like a charm now…

Dave.

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Thanks for those responses. Here is an update on my results.

On a separate thread where I first asked questions about the Meridian 218 before purchasing it, I received this very helpful suggestion:

Disabling DSP solved my problem. Over close to 8 hours the 218 streamed all kinds of files (Hi_Rez, MQA, others) flawlessly. There was one hiccup about 5 hours in when the music stopped. But I was able to restart it immediately without a reboot of either the 218 or the Roon Core.

Disabling DSP solved my problem. Over close to 8 hours the 218 streamed all kinds of files (Hi_Rez, MQA, others) flawlessly. There was one hiccup about 5 hours in when the music stopped. But I was able to restart it immediately without a reboot of either the 218 or the Roon Core.

Another useful comment from the other thread:

My own technical knowledge is pretty limited so I am not certain if a “CPU problem” and a “Wireless bridge” problem are related.

But in any event the 218 now seems to work. I will keep testing it. I am also curious if anyone thinks I am giving up much by accepting that the 218 cannot take advantage of Roon’s DSP?

Geoff

I know you say you can not run an Ethernet cable but I urge you to try it if only temporarily, I really don’t think the Airport Express is helping functionally or sound quality wise.

@Ratbert but what’s the alternative? The dealer recommends something called Eero to provide the hardwired ethernet connection the 218 requires.

I need something to provide that hardwired connection in the other room. A wired connection between the two rooms is something I would need to hook up and disconnect for every serious listening session. Too much trouble.

I did read the other thread I was referred to and I do understand others have had problems with Apple Express usage. But in my case either a reboot of the 218 OR a reboot of the Roon Core restored service, while on the other thread the experience seemed to be that there Apple products disabled Roon completely.

I have no experience myself with the Airport Express, but

  1. I have had experience with many others, and I say that networking is the worst thing we have, except for WiFi which is the absolute worst, except for WiFi extenders.
  2. Lots of complaints in these pages about the Airport Express.
  3. Apple has discontinued the product and gotten out of the business.

After spending a lot of money on a long series of bad devices, I got Eero and it solved all my problems. It consists of several small devices, and they talk amongst themselves. Two of them work together, but if necessary you can get several — my house is difficult, I have six. The point is, they are completely automatic, there are no settings you can misconfigure. So they establish a solid WiFi coverage. Plus the devices come with an Ethernet jack (some models) so you can plug in non-WiFi devices. Works flawlessly for me. (I have several older Meridian devices.)

@AndersVinberg the dealer also said Apple is out of that business but that’s not true. Just bought mine from the Apple Store and it’s still sold on their web site. I’ll see if I can give the Eero a try.

What sort of store would I look for to buy it at?

Note that some of their devices have Ethernet jacks.
They have now come out with a cheaper model without jacks, but that won’t work for you.

What’s your impression of the sound quality, Geoff? I’m toying with the idea of getting a 218 to feed an old power amp instead of another bluesound node2

@owain_thomas I listened carefully for a few hours yesterday and I thought the sound was quite good. I did not have the chance to A/B it with my Bel Canto DAC (which can only stream when I connect an iPad via USB – and thus there is no MQA support as MQA files are not available that way).

The Meridian is quite a bit more expensive than the Blue Sound products. But others here advised me it would work more seamlessly with Roon out of the box, which seems to be true (once I got past that one glitch). Oddly Meridian offers no real information concerning the DAC that is built in to the 218. The local dealer said something like, “Well it’s a Meridian so you know it’s good quality.”

@AndersVinberg it turns out the Eero equipment I would need (two pack) is more than twice the price of the Apple Express. The dealer just suggested he doubts I would hear a difference in the 218 based on the different methods of ethernet connection. Is there a reason you think the Eero would improve sound quality (as opposed to increasing Wi-fi stability)?

Yes, the Eero is expensive. Especially if you get several and create a mesh, as I have. I still like it, because over the years I have paid more buying and trying a lot of devices that didn’t work. So I think my Eero is my last WiFi system.

But I’m talking about stability and reliability. When it comes to sound quality, I believe that if a WiFi system works correctly, there is no sound quality difference. I have heard arguments that a WiFi system with a high degree of errors and dropouts might require a lot of error correction that would burden the end point, but that does not sound plausible to me.

So if you have trouble with the Express, I recommend the Eero. If it works ok for you, no reason to replace it.

But I thought we had this discussion because you have trouble?

Wrt the Airport Express, Wikipedia says:
According to a Bloomberg report on November 21, 2016, “Apple Inc. has disbanded its division that develops wireless routers, another move to try to sharpen the company’s focus on consumer products that generate the bulk of its revenue, according to people familiar with the matter.”[2]

The Express supports the “n” flavor only, while the Eero supports the faster “AC” WiFi Mode. This might be one reason it had trouble when you had DSP active, if your DSP was configured to do upsampling since that increases the data volume.

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@AndersVinberg apologies if I was not clear. I DID have trouble until I followed @John_V’s suggestion and disabled DSP on my Roon Core. No problems since.

Then follow the basic rule: if you are happy, don’t change things, enjoy the music.

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Just asking because I can still return the Apple Express. But if there is no reason to anticipate a sound quality difference, then I’m good.