Unashamedly high-end manufacturer Meridian is, according to Star Wars producer Rick McCallum, responsible for the ‘most awesome components in the world'. The line-up in question includes CD and DVD players, amplifiers, processors and speakers. In the home-cinema Nirvana that is the USA, Meridian kit is indeed revered.

It's a relatively small company – employing around 100 people – and many of the finished products from its Huntingdon base end up Stateside. Over there, the cost no-object gear – co-founder Bob Stuart prefers the term ‘reassuringly expensive' – enjoys a lower profile, but that's something Meridian seems determined to change.

Recently, it invited the SmartHouse team to visit its Huntingdon operation. There we saw and heard some of the newer ranges and met the people behind them. These included John Bamford, a respected ex-Pioneer man who recently moved to Meridian. The enthusiastic Bamford is a self-confessed hi-fi nut and to him Meridian is as much a spiritual home as an employer. ‘Unlike lesser kit, Meridian products won't become obsolete overnight,' he explained as he guided us to our first demo.

True to this, they're not replaced every year with new models with more bells and whistles. Upgrade paths are built in – its original Pro-Logic surround processor was made ready for Dolby Digital, and then DTS. Bob Stuart told us that ‘they'll last a lifetime – we're still servicing products that are 25 years old!'

Sounds good

Meridian firsts include the UK's first true audiophile CD player, and – more recently – the lossless audio codec (Meridian Lossless Packing, or MLP) that is at the heart of DVD-Audio.

Rhonda Wilson, head of Meridian's revered DSP research, was proud to tell us that MLP is an integral part of the Dolby TrueHD specification. MLP can deliver typical compression ratios of between 2:1 and 3.8:1, with no audible deterioration whatsoever. Wilson described MLP as a ‘mathematical operation that we can reverse'. In other words, what you effectively get after decoding are the uncompressed digital audio bitstreams that originally fed the encoder. This is not true of ‘lossy' codecs like Dolby Digital and MP3, which use psycho-acoustic models to determine what can be discarded without offending the ear. TrueHD is optional for Blu-ray, and mandatory for HD DVD hardware. Meridian continues to work very closely with Dolby.

Wilson also confirmed that Meridian's R&D department is working on an automatic setup version of its ‘Room Correction' acoustic-calibration system, which compensates for the effects of the local environment.

Speaking out

The UK firm is also the driving force behind domestic active speakers. Here, each driver is powered by its own amplifier – one for the high-range (the tweeter) and another for the low (the midrange/bass driver). These amps are driven by an electronic filter circuit (crossover) which are fed, in turn, by a processor, preamp or another line-level source.

The amps and filters are built into the speakers themselves. Although an expensive solution, they can sound tighter and better -controlled than ordinary systems, in which the drive units of the speaker are fed from a single amplifier via a ‘passive' crossover. For some time, Meridian has been selling digital active speakers that also carry out DSP and 24-bit/96kHz digital-to-analogue conversion. The flagship model is the DSP8000, a stylish giant that sells for a head-turning $79 999 per pair.

At the other end of the scale is the $7499 per-pair DSP3100 that Meridian is also pitching at the professional market. In one of the demos, we heard a pair of DSP3100s delivering refreshingly good audio from the ubiquitous iPod.

Linking the two together was a prototype of a new product called the MPMax. This device will sell in the UK for £200 and is a strong contender for the most affordable Meridian product. It is essentially a high-quality two-channel analogue-to-digital converter based around the Analog Devices AD1871 chip. The MPMax takes analogue line-level audio and turns it into the 24-bit/ 96kHz PCM bitstreams that Meridian's digital speakers are happiest with. The product is not currently available in Australia, but local distributor Audioworks says to keep a look out for it.

Another new development is a range of ‘installation' speakers, built into heavy and rigid enclosures. The 300 Series consists of three ultra-slimline designs for in-wall (surface grille), on-wall and flush-mount (ie hidden behind wall-coverings) applications.

The 320 features a 6.5in metal-coned bass/mid driver and a wide-range horn-loaded ribbon tweeter. The bigger 330 adds an 8in ABR (auxiliary bass radiator) for improved low-frequency response while the top 350 model incorporates two bass/mid drivers and two ABRs.

They're available in passive (ie traditionally cross-overed) and active (separate terminals for each drive unit) configurations. The price you pay depends on the configuration. The active in-wall version of the 350 (the A350) sells for $6365, while the passive version will set you back $6879 on account of the integral crossover. For use with the active models, Meridian is offering the $7865 G41 – a multichannel 350W amp and electronic crossover. These products can also be used as centre and surround speakers. We were treated to a demo of the A330/G41 and the results were superb. We've heard prestige floor-standing speakers that don't sound this good!

Video matters

To realise the dream of a completely Meridian home cinema, the company has introduced a pair of upmarket projectors. These 1920 x 1080 Full HD D-ILA models will only accept video in 1080p digital form. To supply them with compatible signals, Meridian collaborated with chip kings Faroudja to develop an optimised video processor/scaler that forms an essential part of the package.

Claimed to be a ‘fundamentally new design', the DVP1080MF has HDCP- compliant DVI, S-video, composite and component inputs, plus RS232 and motorised screen-control ports. It's compatible with 480i/p and 576i/p sources; as far as hi-def is concerned, the DVP1080MF's inputs will deal with both 50 and 60Hz ‘flavours' of 720p and 1080i. There are no analogue outputs, because they're not required by the projectors. However, a version with RGB/HV analogue outputs caters for the needs of those using third-party projectors like CRTs.

The smaller of the two D-ILA projectors is the D-ILA1080MF2, a compact three-chip model with a 1.3x (1.8:1 to 2.35:1) zoom lens, 250W lamp, 2100:1 claimed contrast ratio and 500 lumen typical brightness. It's capable of throwing 16:9 images of up to 200in in size. This is available in a pack (combined with the scaler mentioned above) for $29 279. If you want more, there's the larger D-ILA1080MF1, which benefits from a choice of normal throw  (1.9x, 2.0:1 to 3.8:1) or short-throw (1.4x 1.5:1 – 2.1:1) lenses. The MF1 pack is available for $40 529.

Meridian chose the D-ILA technology, according to its resident display expert Luke Rawls, because, ‘It's inherently better than its competitors, with an ‘analogue' look to its picture.' There's no visible pixel structure, meaning that perforated screens can be used – perhaps a moot point if there's a Meridian in-wall speaker performing centre-channel duties behind.

Each projector is calibrated in Meridian's factory, a process that can take five or more hours to complete. There's a good reason for this time-intensive procedure. According to Meridian, the gamma-curve to which the projector is adjusted is based on the characteristics of human eyesight, film and the projector'. Then there's the greyscale adjustment. This achieves a ‘D65' (6500K white-point) calibration-error said to be less than 0.003 from black to white. Other areas that receive attention are contrast ratio optimisation, colour reproduction and white-field uniformity.

The calibration process was developed by Faroudja consultant William Phelps, and involves the use of proprietary software and optical equipment. The process is clearly worthwhile. The pictures produced by the D-ILA1080MF1, fed by the 800 DVD player via the DVP1080MF, were simply stunning with natural colour, deep blacks and superb detail. And I'm talking about Gladiator and Fifth Element, movies made and distributed on analogue film rather than digitally.

Subjectively, a 1080i Blu-ray version of Fifth Element, run in comparison, didn't deliver the expected improvement. Note, however, that early Blu-ray software has been disappointing while Meridian has spent a lot of its money and time trying to extract the last ounce of performance from good old DVD.

Two more Meridian display products attracted our interest. The $575 HDMax 121 is a 1080p-ready HDMI extender. Basically, it consists of an internal HDMI receiver and transmitter. Its job is to act as a ‘repeater', effectively sitting between two HDMI cable runs.

As a result, your projector can be located from your gear by a distance that doubles the maximum cable-run of the HDMI specification. Good news for those with separate equipment rooms or anyone with long distances between their displays and source-gear. Bob Stuart discussed a high-end 1080p projector upgrade where the HDMax 121 spared the installer from having to strip out an existing non-1080p cable that was buried-in plaster. The other new product is the $1199 HDMax 421, a 4-to-1 HDMI switcher.

In all, then, Meridian is doing plenty to ensure that its performance-leading position remains unchallenged.

See: www.audioworks.com.au