[Sugano-san]

In a letter printed in the latest issue of UK audio mag Hifi News, a reader complains that the Meridian 808's CD sound is not significantly better than that of his "old" CD player Meridian 508/24. The reader wonders whether the less than stellar CD performance of the 808 had something to do with the fact that a DVD drive is installed.

The totally surprising and unexpected reply was that the Meridian 808 is in fact nothing but an audio only, two channel DVD player, which has not yet been marketed as such!

Meridian 808 owners---have any of you ever tried a DVD in your machine? Maybe its the same with the G08. Has anyone tried feeding audio DVDs to a G08?

I found this revelation most intriguing.

 

[S_Dedalus]

The meridian is using a computer drive as a transport. By doing so, they can use an internal computer for on the fly error correction in the same way Exact Audio Copy works to rip a bit perfect file from a cd. More than likely, the reason why he can't tell much of a difference is due to the fact that they were made and voiced by the same people, and its quite possible that his equipment is not good enough to see much of a difference.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Sugano-san In a letter printed in the latest issue of UK audio mag Hifi News, a reader complains that the Meridian 808's CD sound is not significantly better than that of his "old" CD player Meridian 508/24. The reader wonders whether the less than stellar CD performance of the 808 had something to do with the fact that a DVD drive is installed. The totally surprising and unexpected reply was that the Meridian 808 is in fact nothing but an audio only, two channel DVD player, which has not yet been marketed as such! Meridian 808 owners---have any of you ever tried a DVD in your machine? Maybe its the same with the G08. Has anyone tried feeding audio DVDs to a G08? I found this revelation most intriguing.

 

[Sugano-san]

The reader listed his gear and it was all excellent stuff. My main point here is not to speculate why he didn't hear a lot of difference, my main point is that the Meridian 808 is in fact a DVD player, i.e. it is capable of playing back audio DVDs, but it is not being marketed as such, it is being marketed as a CD-only player (up to now anyway).

 

[S_Dedalus]

It has a 24 bit 192khz dac, and a computer dvd drive, but so do the G08 and G07 and the 588. Just because it has a drive capable of reading dvds, doesn't mean it has the necessary software to decode dvd-a, and according to meridian it doesn't.

 

[Sugano-san]

That is precisely my point, up to now everybody assumed (just like you did) that the 808 plays only CDs, but apparently it is (and has been all the time) capable of playing and decoding audio DVDs. That's what's printed in the latest issue of Hifi News anyway.

Quoted Source: Apparently the boss of Meridian himself told the Hifi News author.

 

[S_Dedalus]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sugano-san That is precisely my point, up to now everybody assumed (just like you did) that the 808 plays only CDs, but apparently it is (and has been all the time) capable of playing and decoding audio DVDs. That's what's printed in the latest issue of Hifi News anyway. Quoted Source: Apparently the boss of Meridian himself told the Hifi News author.

What I'm wondering is, what will Meridian do if the players don't have the necessary software to decode dvd-a, and all of their customers get pissed. The GO7, G08, and 588 all use a computer dvd drive and a dac capable of handling 24bit 192khz pcm data. Will all of those owners suddenly want dvd-a playback?

 

[Sugano-san]

I wrote in the first post, among other things: "Maybe its the same with the G08. Has anyone tried feeding audio DVDs to a G08?"

 

[S_Dedalus]

I'm not trying to criticize what you wrote, it just seems strange to me that Meridian would not advertise a feature, and then say its there, especially since many of their other products seem to have the same capability, even if its not implemented.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Sugano-san I wrote in the first post, among other things: "Maybe its the same with the G08. Has anyone tried feeding audio DVDs to a G08?"

 

[Sugano-san]

I does seem strange, doesn't it, and Hifi News described the revelation by the Meridian head honcho as "unbelievable" or the like. But this is what they wrote, and it wasn't in the April issue.

 

[jjcha]

[EDIT - Woops pretty bad typo in my original]

The G08 does not play audio off a DVD, either regular DVD or DVD-A.

Best,

-Jason

 

[Runningwater]

I should say 808 sound better than G08 with normal CD.

 

[Canman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sugano-san I wrote in the first post, among other things: "Maybe its the same with the G08. Has anyone tried feeding audio DVDs to a G08?"

I don't know what's up with the 808, but the G08 uses a computer DVD-ROM drive as a transport. The laser/servo is capable of getting the information off a DVD, however there is no other hardware/software to process the data. AFAIK, the digital receiver chip and DAC will only process 16 bit / 44.1 kHz input (The digital receiver chip will also process MP3 to PCM). Unfortunately, a software update would not allow this machine to play DVDs.

Just because a machine has hardware or software to play a DVD does not give it any advantage or disadvantage when playing regular CDs.