It already has a LAN card in it, it is just specced below the USB input. To buy a c. €10000 piece of gear which has a LAN connection (that card costing separately over €1000), and have to anyway buy a LAN-USB dongle to support 192 is unfortunate to say the least…
When I commented on this, I was told by Meridian to downsample. That is all very well, but as Bob has been telling us to sample as high as possible, I don’t really want to destroy the precious timing information that we now know is there.
So on the one hand we are told to record at DXD or even DXDx2 levels, and on the other hand we are told to downsample to 96kHz. This confusion, which is incarnate in the 818v3’s mixed input possibilities, is surely only a natural consequence of Meridian’s change of understanding of high-rate. As such the 818v3 is an “inbetween-point” where not all the ducks are in a row.
It’s still a fantastic machine. It sounds amazing and I am delighted to own one. I just wish they would support a LAN protocol which is consistent with Bob’s statements about high res. (Don’t say MQA, that’s not an excuse.)
Yes. And even if the 818 upgraded, there is the limitation in the DSP speakers. They are PCM and will stay so because they do a lot of processing, and you can’t process DSD. So DSD gets converted to PCM, either in Roon or in the 818. Unavoidable.
I agree with @VirusKiller and @Ratbert, the 818 makes sense only as a DSP controller. I like them, recently bought them. But apart from the speakers, I see no reason to by them. Originally revolutionary but the benefits are commonplace today, and behind-the-times limitations.
@AndersVinberg Maybe that is the motivation behind the ‘secret’ 800 DAC, personally Meridian seem to be so up their **** regards communication that I am actively looking at alternatives which Roon enables me to do.
@Paul_Fisch Well, I may agree with you. Not convinced I can hear any improvement feeding 192 content in vs. down sampling to 96. But for those that do, a $650 add-on is better than replacing a $15,000 box.
@Ratbert I wonder about the business opportunity. A general purpose DAC that is not linked to any existing Meridian high-value asset enters a very tough competitive field, with excellent products at every price point. Not easy to make a justification that fits M’s position.
Sooloos was unique but no longer is. The DSP speakers still are quite distinctive, but others are picking up on the concept at lower price points (Kii, Avantgarde…). What is the right plan? Move toward lower price points to compete with Kii, and find sales channels that work at that price point? Move toward higher price points and compete with Wilson and that ilk?
A combination of a $100,000 price point (828+DSP8000) and a $300 price point (Explorer) does not make much sense to me.
@AndersVinberg Your comments indicate to me that Meridian is at best confused at worst lost, I have recently sold most of my Meridian equipment just 8kSE’s and an 818v3 and some old legacy bits left, going forward Meridian will not be my first choice as they have been in the past and reading the MeridianUnplugged forum I am not alone. I applaud Roon for giving us all back choice I intend to enjoy it.
We should find out later this week. Personally, I feel that Meridian should either compete at the very top (dCS Vivaldi) in the studio and über-high-end enthusiast market (they must have made a lot of studio friends in the last five years with all of the MQA work, but didn’t have a product), or compete lower down. I worry that it will end up stuck in the middle.
Can you give me ppractical advice?
I currently have Control 10 and Ensemble, the latter in the basement.
My C10 failed software update and needs to be repaired which I would get for free. The C10 is connected to a PS Audio DL3 DAC and this to the full amplifier Symphonic Line RG4 MK4 with Piega C40 speakers.
Should I keep the C10 or replace the C10 and the PS Audio DAC by the 818v3. I would get a fairly good price for the 818v3. Should I do it? The alternative would be keep the C10 and replace it when the MS600 is available with the MQA upgrade. This will be available quite soon as I heard today.
My understanding is that a new Meridian device will be announced this week. I would recommend waiting for that announcement and then review this new option.
Paul, I have a similar set up, C10, Ensemble and MS-600 and my friend has a similar setup, but with two Source Ones vs. the Ensemble. Components just started to drop out for both of us, both C10’s died and were repaired last year and both died again this year. His Source One died, and so did my Ensemble… both again this year. That legacy hardware is a ticking time bomb. In most cases, the CR2032 bios battery was dead so I replaced them, and in one case the memory retainer was busted, so I fixed that. But clearly it was time to move on.
We both replaced the C10 with a nice hp Pavillion touch screen computer (we bought a 24" and a 27" and I prefer the 24"). If you dedicate that computer for music only, it makes for an awesome replacement for the C10 by having your dealer install the app on your QNAP NAS. Oh yeah, you’ll want to dump the Ensemble and get a QNAP NAS. I choose the TVS-x71 series, but (the x representing the number of bays you want). It has an Intel i7 so it’s very fast, but my friend’s TS-x53 series is just fine too. Unfortunately, you’ll still be stuck with the Meridian proprietary music format if you use Meridian’s app.
You can use an end point like the MS-600 for the above. And you can also load ROON on the hp touchscreen server and play through your MS-600. Keep in mind the MS-600 is limited to 24/96. Also keep in mind that with the new MQA hardware, you are still seriously limited on compatible media, so your music selection options will remain minimal with that format for a while (of course perhaps streaming services with MQA might open that up if an option for you). If you use ROON, you will need to export your Meridian music library over to something like FLAC, which you should do any way to preserve your library in a non-proprietary format.
Apropos of this, just stumbled on this quote from Meridian’s Matt Holland in a rare DSP8000SE review.
“Our ambition in the future is to increase the maximum sampling rate of our SpeakerLink transport. The current Meridian state-of-the-art is 24/96 for DACs. Our front-end processors, like 818v3 and UltraDAC, can handle much higher sampling rates at their inputs, so in terms of file compatibility we handle practically everything available.”
. All kind of meaningless until until Meridian actually do it or god forbid give a roadmap!