Meridian G06 ¦ $4899 ¦   ¦ www.ambertech.com.au
For: Can stomp, sing, shake, rattle'n'roll and generally have a good time.
Against: Ruthless honesty is not to everyone's taste.
Verdict: Great look and excellent build quality, the remote is a cracker.
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Much time has passed since we looked at Meridian's ‘statement' CD player, the 808, but memories of its highly desirable sound remain fresh. It's proved a hit with buyers, too. All the same, there's only so many people who will ever be able to fork out the $19,995 required to purchase it.  The G06, however, is a considerably more realistic beast at a cheaper price. Meridian presumably doesn't rate it as equal to the big monster, but how close does it get?

In terms of appearance and ergonomics, pretty close. We're particularly taken with the controls, which are – in our experience – truly novel: the front panel buttons are (mostly) not labelled until the machine is turned on, whereupon labels for them appear on the large graphic display above. That's cool, but even cooler is that by pressing the ‘More' button, one can get access to fast forward/backward and programming buttons, the labels above the buttons changing as the buttons themselves are reconfigured. This at least removes the necessity for the remote control on most occasions – but for once this is almost an own goal, because Meridian's fantastic system remote is supplied as standard. This king-sized creation is truly a delight in itself; it's backlit, powerful and unusually neatly labelled. Better still, as it's a multi-product, multi-manufacturer and learning remote, you can use it for every other bit of kit you own.

So, it's a proper high-end user experience at least. The general appearance you can gauge from the photos, but this won't tell you just how solid the machine feels. Thoughtful choice of materials and assembly methods has made the G06 unusually dead and non-resonant, while its considerable weight ensures there's no danger whatsoever of it sliding around in use or at the whim of some unusually inflexible interconnect cable.

The weight is almost entirely casework. Meridian has never been big on monster power supplies, and in fact the supply is a universal switch-mode type that accepts any mains voltage and frequency. As far as we could tell, it also eliminates any signature in terms of hum or other breakthrough to the audio. It is partnered by two other main functional blocks: the transport and the audio board.

It's no great surprise that the transport is a DVD-ROM type (thankfully quieter mechanically than most – it's essentially inaudible from more than a metre away, apart from a faint, periodic clicking sound). It claims "ten times better" error correction than normal transports, but don't be fooled – even this deck won't play those marmalade-smeared discs!

What may be less expected is that the audio board is at first glance quite similar in its chip count to that of many other CD players in this general price bracket. The D-to-A convertor, for a start, is a familiar type and the output op-amps likewise. True, there are a few detail differences but on the whole this looks like a not-untypical assemblage of parts. We can't criticise Meridian for this: at this kind of price, in the quantities one can reasonably expect to shift, the choice is quite simply between a truly novel functional implementation in a bog-basic box and a smart-looking unit with a largely conventional electronics complement. Given the performance levels we know from experience that can be achieved with the latter solution, Meridian's choice seems sensible. Anyway, if you really want something a bit less ordinary, you can look instead at the impressive G08, which in a near-identical package offers Meridian's own upsampling implementation and various other niceties.

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Back to the issue at hand: what, then, does Meridian claim for this player? As you might expect, low distortion and low jitter both figure, as does low noise. We're happy to confirm those claims are all among the best we've seen at any price and generally exemplary. A few other technical tests we've dreamed up failed to show any worrying trends, with digital filter ripple basically non-existent and the ultrasonic band above 24kHz exceptionally well suppressed. The one weakness, compared with the 808 and a very few other high-end players/DACs we've seen, is the all-too-common use of a filter configuration that attenuates at half the sampling frequency by only a modest amount.

Naturally, with Meridian being leading proponents of digital loudspeakers and inter-equipment communications, options are provided for these, the former by the usual S/PDIF digital outputs (electrical and Toslink) and the latter by two ‘Meridian Comms' DIN sockets and one BNC. An RS232 input is also provided for maintenance and updating of the internal firmware.

SOUND QUALITY

Coming to us hot on the heels of a group of CD players of similar price to this one, the G06 found us in no mood to tolerate even the smallest of foibles, since one evidently doesn't have to. Not that we seriously expected any. From the very outset (whatever one might think of the advisability of warming up and burning in kit), it was clear that we would have to try very hard if we were going to disturb this Meridian's sang-froid. It's a very, very confident all-rounder with impressive abilities in just about every area. If it was a person, it would be a cross between

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Jeeves and Bruce Lee.

It happened to arrive just hours after a handful of CDs that were mastered and quality-checked on the same amplifier and speakers. One of these discs featured artists very familiar from personal acquaintance. How better to check both player and discs than by marrying them together? And it was rewarding to hear well-loved and carefully nurtured sounds welling forth, with just a little more solidity to the bass than we remembered, reassuringly stable and precise stereo imaging and treble that was very clearly extended. What we had heard previously was a shade more openness in the treble, slightly more air around the solo female voice on the most familiar recording and also just a little less harshness on her sibilants.

Still, those qualities had been noted when using a seriously upmarket professional DAC and we'd hesitate to suggest that they can be found in any sub-5000 CD replay machine we've encountered. Nor indeed can we recommend offhand any direct competitor that can make a better job of the lower reaches, although some probably reach parity. There is something quite awe-inspiringly real about the G06's bass, a combination of extension and control that provides both ‘slam' and tunefulness, a relatively rare achievement especially if one values tunefulness in quiet music.

That last comment in particular may suggest that this is a very good player for jazz lovers (after all, the mellow tones of the plucked upright bass underpin a large number of classic tracks) and that's a fair conclusion. The only limitation with such repertoire is in the treble, and ‘limitation' is a downright unfair way to judge an unwillingness to stoop to mellowing the rather aggressive brightness of quite a few well-known jazz recordings.

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All the same, it's as well to be aware that in true Meridian style this is above all an honest CD player that makes no concessions to poor recordings. To the extent that they lack bass, treble or detail it will bail them out as best it can, but gross tonality faults or downright feebleness are simply relayed in all their inadequacy. Yes, there is hi-fi around that seems to make a better fist of such recordings by papering over the sonic cracks, but there's always a price to be paid in terms of performance with top-notch productions.

Similar logic applies to the business of system matching. Don't buy a G06 if you are expecting it magically to ‘fix' problems elsewhere in the system. It won't do it, but it will at least help you identify the problems more precisely. And of course, it requires no special treatment, either. It sounds assured, detailed and refined in pretty much any hi-fi company we can muster for it.

The most important aspect, though, which we've deliberately saved for last, is that this is a really music-loving piece of hi-fi equipment. It can be tempting to make a simplistic equation between analysis and lack of musical involvement, but this is one of those desirable bits of equipment that prove conclusively how hollow and misleading a hypothesis that is. On the contrary, it is precisely because this is a particularly detailed and analytical player that one can so easily become completely immersed in a fine musical performance.

At a live gig – a good one in a decent venue with a really buzzing group of performers on stage, instead of one reliant on PA systems, special effects and pyrotechnics to make up for limitations in performer or performance – one doesn't have to concentrate on one aspect of the sound to enjoy it. It's all there, in outline and in detail, for the brain to take in with minimal effort and maximum appreciation.

That's exactly what really fine hi-fi like this can achieve, balancing the various aspects of tonality, image, dynamics, rhythm and melody in such a way that whatever one wants to hear within the whole is instantly accessible. If you listen hard enough, you can pick out the detail in an AM radio broadcast on a cheap tranny, but the effort will weary your brain almost before you've begun. The G06, a perfect example of balancing virtues, doesn't ask you to do that work: it does it for you.

The second flute in a romantic symphony, or the whole orchestra? The backing vocals in a glam rock track, or the bass? It's your choice, and the answer ‘both' is also entirely possible. Meridian has achieved a high and consistent standard with this player that is not markedly partial to any musical style or instrument, nor to any other external circumstances, and while we must concede that on sound quality grounds alone it's not the only game in town (some others manage similar feats at a similar price), the G06 is by any standards a highly recommendable item.