Meridian has unveiled its next generation Signature Reference CD player and DSP Loudspeaker, which the company claims gives users the best aural experience possible.
 Click to enlarge |
| The 808.2 Signature Reference CD Player |
808.2 Signature Reference
Company co-founder and lead designer, Bob Stuart said, “The 808.2 is an evolutionary design, yet its refinements add up to what is in fact an almost entirely new piece of engineering. We’re confident that it will unequivocally retain Meridian’s position as the source of the world’s finest audio CD player, bar none. This is very important to us, because the compact disc remains the primary music source for countless serious music and audio devotees, and at its best remains capable of remarkable sonic performance.”
The 808.2 Signature Reference features improved clocking and buffering systems that reduce coloration-inducing time-base errors or “jitter” to very low levels. This CD player also feature Meridian’s new RJ45-based digital interfacing system dubbed SpeakerLink, allowing a direct, single-cable link from the 808.2 to any of Meridian’s unique DSP Loudspeakers (or to a Meridian digital preamp/controller) via CAT-5 ‘Ethernet’ cabling.
The 808.2 employs a professional-component ROM optical-drive mechanism, resulting to more accurate and reliable data reading and error correction. Also on board is Meridian’s proprietary Resolution Enhancement system, which upsamples 44.1/16-bit CD data to 176.4/24-bit with 48-bit internal precision, along with a newly refined delta-sigma digital-to-analogue converter system of reference accuracy.
DSP7200 Loudspeaker
According to Meridian, the DSP7200 features extensively re-designed internal electronics and advanced new software, along with upgraded drive units, and power amplifiers that bring it dramatically close to the remarkable performance of the legendary DSP8000.
 Click to enlarge |
| DSP7200 Loudspeakers |
The DSP7200 is also the first of Meridian’s DSP Loudspeaker range to include SpeakerLink – which employs RJ45 (Ethernet) ports for ‘Meridian Comms’ interconnection, delivering the simplicity and elegance of installation via inexpensive, commonly available, and easily custom-run CAT-5 cabling. It also enables precision command of frequency balance, listening axis and time-compensated balance, and master volume.
The DSP7200 is an active Bessel low-frequency alignment which confers the bottom-end extension benefits of a porting but retains exact timing and coherence previously only associated with certain ‘closed-box’ designs, resulting to deep and tight bass.
Cabinets are crafted from Meridian’s innovative, multi-layered ‘sandwich’ of selected woods and metal, formed in curved, pressure-laminated panels that produce almost perfectly vibration- and resonance-free enclosures, for unmatched freedom from coloration.
Each DSP7200 accepts a digital bitstream directly from a Meridian preamplifier, CD or DVD player, or AV system-controller, accommodating bitstreams up to 96/24 including the company’s proprietary Meridian High Resolution (MHR) up-sampled, enhanced-resolution format. This arrangement eliminates analogue speaker cabling and its associated losses, colorations, and clutter, Merdian says.
Australian pricing has yet to be announced.
