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Meridian G68ADV: were AV Processor Ever Good?

March Audio

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Well, that is because HDMI is the worst "standard" to have ever been released to the market. Calling it a standard is an insult to the word. Full of bugs and compatibility issues with no requirement for certification. Japanese companies like Onkyo also had their head in the sand only testing with Japanese products. I am amazed the stupid thing works as well it does today.

Intel took the initiative to add HDCP copy protection to HDMI and as a result, it was the only viable option at the time.
I was oh so pleased when my 5 year old UHD Samsung TV became obsolete because it didnt support HDCP 2.2
 

al2002

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I stopped using my Meridian player/processor because of no HDMI connections.
The performance was to all intents and purposes perfect for all the recordings I used it for, both CDs amd films.


They did release the HD621 and later the UHD 722. I’m tempted to get a used 621 to go with my G91
 

xykreinov

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Well, that is because HDMI is the worst "standard" to have ever been released to the market. Calling it a standard is an insult to the word. Full of bugs and compatibility issues with no requirement for certification. Japanese companies like Onkyo also had their head in the sand only testing with Japanese products. I am amazed the stupid thing works as well it does today.

Intel took the initiative to add HDCP copy protection to HDMI and as a result, it was the only viable option at the time.
I get when developments don't take over as standards when there are too many little things or inconveniences in the way. The POWER cpu architecture losing to x86 because of application support (not claiming that's the only reason) would be an example. But, when you have something as open in licensing and superior in all technical respects like DisplayPort and you choose HDMI, just why? It's like vorbis vs mp3 battles of old. Licensing was tricky for companies *and* it sounded sooooo much worse than vorbis. But, hey, popularity right?
I wish today at least we were having opus (open source vorbis successor) vs aac (proprietary mp3 successor) battles, as the two are much more comparable. Instead, it's this giant mess of everyone weakly trying to crush mp3's hugely overstayed dominance.
 

SplitTime

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We could blame HDMI for pushing a few small brands out. And also of being a not perfectly integrated connection (amir has already measured the side effects of HDMI vs other connections).

But remember that thanks to HDMI bandwidth we can enjoy the same LOSSLESS MASTER as the studio were the movies were mixed and produced, in the confort of our couch trough BluRay discs (aka DTS HD Master Audio, Dolby True HD, etc).

But if we can’t reproduce the sound and video from that lossless master has it really added a lot of value? I suppose we can argue that HDCP handshake does allow us to get access to the higher definition 1080P and 4K video portions of those. But, that’s really a requirement imposed in an attempt to prevent piracy. So sure, video is better with HDMI (if the required HDCP hoops are jumped through). We can now run 11.x for various surround and overhead effects, so the quantity of speakers that can be driven from that master has increased. Seems like HDMI has added a lot of value to the home theater and movie watcher. (I am one of those folks too.) But audio quality (reproduction quality) does not seem to be better because of the extra bandwidth afforded by HDMI.
 

Mnyb

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Thanks for this Review .

There where many modells of the G68 .

I own the G68J who has a different set connectivity including balanced analog out for all channels, I used it in an all analog setup for some years before I’ve got Meridian speakers who uses MHR or speaker link ( proprietary digital IO).

Meridian does have HDMI it requires an add on video processor box , I have one of those Meridian HD621 it breaks out the audio digitally to feed back to the G68 and handles all video switching .
( there are never models a viable now ).
All Meridian products communicate with each other via special com cable so it all integrates as one box .
So you only need one remote control for the whole system including DVDA player and speakers, it makes av integration easy just connect one serial cable to the G68 and you have control.

Their G98DH DVDA player already breaks out the audio digitally via MHR link and has HDMI out for your video needs.

The add on HDMI processor is neede when you more than DVD , they introduced it when game consoles and blue ray arrived.

So yes I can still use this old processor for blue ray :) so it is actually not obsolete and it has room correction.

It does how it’s age when you do the DRC you use serial cable to the PC and connects a microphone to one of the analog inputs.

Bass management is still quite functional and flexible and in combination with DRC it gives seamless sub integration, something I never managed before 2004 .

Suppose mini DSP does this even better with today’s technology.

Meridian have scrapped the different G68 processors and G61 processors and replaced it with just one G65 model at half the price of the G68J and 1/3 of the price of the flagship G68ADX .
It is supposed to be better than all of the old G series and have XLR out . You still need one off the outboard HDMI processors if you want to use it for video .

I use it without hdmi at the moment for audio only purposes as a pure music system . As since I moved in with my better half has a separate movie room . So after 15 years I separated the HT and music system again .

Meridian did a brave attempt to combine HT and music without compromising,

Another thing the analog performance is not relevant when using it as a controller for their digital speakers I only use analog for the sub as meridians own subs never been competitive ( they are just expensive, but do have digital inputs ).
 

Mnyb

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To add to my long post .

Meridian have some kind of encryption between its HDMI processor and G or 800 series processor so they you are able to get McGee 24/96 audio to your digital speakers from an HDM source .

How they managed to jump all the hurdles to be allowed this I don’t know.

You can program the MHR out to be just 3 normal spdif but then its crippled to 48khz
 
OP
amirm

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Thank you @amirm for reviewing my unit. Although the photo has Trifield shown, I assume you used Direct mode to avoid all processing.
Yes, I tested in Direct.
 

sebackman

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@amirm, excellent review as always. If you still have access to the G68 can you please run some tests how it fairs compare to newer HW in the digital domain only.

That being SPDIF in (Direct and Cinema, bitstream, 44,1, 48 and 96kHz) and SPDIF out. It would be great to have some measures in both 2-channel and decoded Dolby/DTS.

Most of the G68's have digital 7.1 out and by using a newer (better) DAC potentially some of the DAC shortcomings seen in the review can be mitigated.

This is interesting as there are very few processors that actually can produce decoded 5.1/7.1 SPDIF out. I guess it is due to copy protection and licence limitations.

I use mine as a sort of “digital switch” and Dolby/DTS decoder to route 5.2 from DVD, PC, Raspberry/Volumio and IP TV signals to a digital in DSP. No HDMI on mine.

I’m curious how the 15 year old digital side holds up compared to newer HW. The DAC is outdated, but what about the rest?

An alternative for me would be to use a PC sound card with 8 channels SPDIF out together with something like Roon, but the Meridian is still easier to handle on a day to day basis.

And in reply to Mnyb they can do 48kHz and 96kHz out unencrypted 7.1 on SPDIF, that is what I use.

Kind regards and thank you

//Rob
 

Tks

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I was oh so pleased when my 5 year old UHD Samsung TV became obsolete because it didnt support HDCP 2.2

I mean this is just simply planned obsolescence, it would have manifested one way or another. You just got caust in the transition point, as these sorts of moves of leaving prior owners high and dry don't happen too often (would face legal backlash if they made too many of these sorts of splashes).
 

sergeauckland

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I mean this is just simply planned obsolescence, it would have manifested one way or another. You just got caust in the transition point, as these sorts of moves of leaving prior owners high and dry don't happen too often (would face legal backlash if they made too many of these sorts of splashes).

Which in my opinion should be made illegal. Rendering a television effectively unusable after only 5 years shouldn't be allowed. I have the same problem with operating systems that cause hardware to become obsolete. Stuff should work 'forever' in my view, software should never be allowed to render hardware obsolete.

S.
 

Mnyb

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@amirm, excellent review as always. If you still have access to the G68 can you please run some tests how it fairs compare to newer HW in the digital domain only.

That being SPDIF in (Direct and Cinema, bitstream, 44,1, 48 and 96kHz) and SPDIF out. It would be great to have some measures in both 2-channel and decoded Dolby/DTS.

Most of the G68's have digital 7.1 out and by using a newer (better) DAC potentially some of the DAC shortcomings seen in the review can be mitigated.

This is interesting as there are very few processors that actually can produce decoded 5.1/7.1 SPDIF out. I guess it is due to copy protection and licence limitations.

I use mine as a sort of “digital switch” and Dolby/DTS decoder to route 5.2 from DVD, PC, Raspberry/Volumio and IP TV signals to a digital in DSP. No HDMI on mine.

I’m curious how the 15 year old digital side holds up compared to newer HW. The DAC is outdated, but what about the rest?

An alternative for me would be to use a PC sound card with 8 channels SPDIF out together with something like Roon, but the Meridian is still easier to handle on a day to day basis.

And in reply to Mnyb they can do 48kHz and 96kHz out unencrypted 7.1 on SPDIF, that is what I use.

Kind regards and thank you

//Rob

Never tried my HD621 stand alone , if the G68 gives you 24/96 spdiff nice good to know thankyou never used it that way .My G68 It's now mostly controller for my Meridian Speakers and DRC and subwoofer xover i do use trifield all the time i think it's great .

My hifi delaer actually have installed system where a Meridian HD621 or one of the never UHD variants is used to get spdiff digital from hdmi to use with genelec speakers :) for some of his custommers , I do not know the details .

I agree that licenses hdmi ic problems and copy protection basically killed the dream of integrated hifi/HT system with digitally driven speakers . Meridian managed to market a niche propritary solution , but the rest of the market fell flat on it's face , and in the long run also Meridian eventually.

So when the Meridian gear dies for me , I'll move to some mini DSP dirac solution with some good stereo speakers and a sub for music, and separate HT gear.
 

Tks

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Which in my opinion should be made illegal. Rendering a television effectively unusable after only 5 years shouldn't be allowed. I have the same problem with operating systems that cause hardware to become obsolete. Stuff should work 'forever' in my view, software should never be allowed to render hardware obsolete.

S.

Luckily, there is precedent for this in France, where they passed legislation against this practice. Remains to be seen how effective this law will be (enforcement and budgets granted for enforcing it).

As for the idea of illegalizing this.. Well then you are against the fruits of Capitalistic systems. Also against the economic necessity of a post-Industrial Age world.

What I mean by that is, planned and intrinsic obsolescence MUST exist if you want to keep the economies that exist today, functioning. After the Industrial Revolution, finally in human history the threshold of supply outstripping demand (in terms of manufacturing capability) was crossed. Economists thought this would bring world prosperity. What it only brought was surplus and failure within markets, as now you can make all you want, cheaply, and for everyone on the planet if you needed. This is a problem, as it stagnates economic activity (and the cyclical consumption model that must go on forever with infinite growth in the current globalist/capitalistic economy), what happens is you get recessions, and if the economy dares to shrink by some disastrous events, you have full blown depression.

Planned obsolescence was actually practiced openly nearly a century ago by the Phoebus Cartel (conspirators of which conspired and successfully brought down the market-standard of length of lightbulb life-span). Today you have the apex companies of this practice (Apple and & Friends), where it's not that companies will try to simply use cheaper parts in hopes that they fail(intrinsic obsolescence). The planned obsolescence ideal is actively perfected. It's not enough to hope a product fails anymore because you use bad parts, you actually want to be able to calculate precisely the moment it fails like the expiration-date of food essentially.

Any company NOT doing this, you can rest assured they're not at the top of any of their respective industries (in the same way no company could ever be the top of anything if they're not willing to slice throats in the middle of the night so to speak of their competition).

So here we are at the end. On a philosophical level, you now have to say you are against this practice, which is then having to openly say, not everyone should have a chance at "making it", as this practice is what allows so many factories to even exist in the first place. You also need to do away with proprietary close-source software/schematics (as hiding these specifics is what also allows this obsolescence to continue), thus having to do away with the current patent system.

So if you're ready for the fallout of that, then yes, this needs to be made illegal. Now France has, but it's misplaced because they aren't ready to go the whole way, and assure the law can be upheld without dedicating the whole government to vetting products 24/7... To me the law is just another warranty bump. Also the penalties for this sort of practice need to be more severe, as the benefits for uncaught violators is very high as you might imagine.
 

madbrayniak

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[Note: Partially Cross-posted on my center channel thread.]

I am an older audiophile and film lover (not quite as old as Dobri Dobrev, the gentleman who is my new avatar). I am an American expatriate - a retiree on a modest pension - and in a little mountain valley tourist town in Western Panama. My office-A/V room is very small, but I like good audio and and enjoy watching videos on a 1080p, 40" Samsung LED TV using my 2-channel audio system for the soundtracks. My A/V source is an older Intel NUC5CPYH mini-PC, and my music is digital audio files that range from low bitrate MP3 to 24/96 FLAC. Videos are mostly MP4 or MKV files with up to 1080 resolution and 5.1 audio. No way am I going to invest in a full 5.1 system with separate electronics and speakers - not even a used AVR.

I am basically happy with my audio system in spite of its limitations (see my signature for details), but decided to potentially stretch my budget and "upgrade" my audio by replacing my little 2-way Paradigm Atom bookshelf speakers (no sub) with the larger 3-way Wharfedale Evo 4.2 speakers, and add a matching Evo 4c center speaker for watching movies and documentaries, which is something I do 4-5 nights every week.

And therein lies the problem. The above discussion includes the difficulties of implementing multichannel sound without buying a separate AVR or AV Preamp, and no one does 3.1. Even the original 5.1 surround system is becoming less common. Simply extracting and doing a simple DA conversion for a video-only center channel signal from HDMI to improve dialog clarity is not easy for a 2-channel audiophile.

Appropriate to this thread and its subtopic of multichannel audio technology is the fact that, after hours of searching the internet, I found only one promising multi-channel HDMI Audio Extractor/DAC, the Evolve II-4K HDMI v2.0 / Multi-Channel DAC. It is a $299 unit from Essence Audio in Florida - a real company with real people to contact. The Evolve looks simple, is reasonably priced, and has no frills. It was the only one I found from a known company that appears to be a reseller, but not a re-labeler of generic cheap-electronics.
View attachment 57322

Amir tested another Essence HDMI DAC, the $699 Essence HDACC II-4K HDMI/USB DAC, and found it to be a decent produts. Like many of its cheaper current generic ChiFi counterparts, the HDACC II-4K only extracted and converted the front L/R channels from HDMI. The architecture seems to be more of a conventional 2-channel DAC with a limited 2-channel HDMI signal extractor added.
View attachment 57325

For el-cheapo multichannel HDMI extraction, there are a couple of similar appearing "families" of multi-channel DACs with slight variations in configuration and labeling appearing at a multitude of internet seller sites. The one below is the one I chose to purchase and have drop-shipped to @amirm for testing. If it is decent, I will use it, switching to it for L/R/C to feed 3-channel audio for video viewing, while leaving the surround channels unconnected. If it doesn't perform decently in testing, I will save my money and get the Essence unit - and I hope another ASR member will buy the Essence Evolve II unit and send it to @amirm for testing.
View attachment 57330

Thanks for sharing these.

MiniDSP used to have the NanoAVR HDA as well but it has been discontinued. I really hope they come out with an updated one.
 

sergeauckland

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Luckily, there is precedent for this in France, where they passed legislation against this practice. Remains to be seen how effective this law will be (enforcement and budgets granted for enforcing it).

As for the idea of illegalizing this.. Well then you are against the fruits of Capitalistic systems. Also against the economic necessity of a post-Industrial Age world.

What I mean by that is, planned and intrinsic obsolescence MUST exist if you want to keep the economies that exist today, functioning. After the Industrial Revolution, finally in human history the threshold of supply outstripping demand (in terms of manufacturing capability) was crossed. Economists thought this would bring world prosperity. What it only brought was surplus and failure within markets, as now you can make all you want, cheaply, and for everyone on the planet if you needed. This is a problem, as it stagnates economic activity (and the cyclical consumption model that must go on forever with infinite growth in the current globalist/capitalistic economy), what happens is you get recessions, and if the economy dares to shrink by some disastrous events, you have full blown depression.

Planned obsolescence was actually practiced openly nearly a century ago by the Phoebus Cartel (conspirators of which conspired and successfully brought down the market-standard of length of lightbulb life-span). Today you have the apex companies of this practice (Apple and & Friends), where it's not that companies will try to simply use cheaper parts in hopes that they fail(intrinsic obsolescence). The planned obsolescence ideal is actively perfected. It's not enough to hope a product fails anymore because you use bad parts, you actually want to be able to calculate precisely the moment it fails like the expiration-date of food essentially.

Any company NOT doing this, you can rest assured they're not at the top of any of their respective industries (in the same way no company could ever be the top of anything if they're not willing to slice throats in the middle of the night so to speak of their competition).

So here we are at the end. On a philosophical level, you now have to say you are against this practice, which is then having to openly say, not everyone should have a chance at "making it", as this practice is what allows so many factories to even exist in the first place. You also need to do away with proprietary close-source software/schematics (as hiding these specifics is what also allows this obsolescence to continue), thus having to do away with the current patent system.

So if you're ready for the fallout of that, then yes, this needs to be made illegal. Now France has, but it's misplaced because they aren't ready to go the whole way, and assure the law can be upheld without dedicating the whole government to vetting products 24/7... To me the law is just another warranty bump. Also the penalties for this sort of practice need to be more severe, as the benefits for uncaught violators is very high as you might imagine.
Sadly, I think you're right in your analysis, but that doesn't make it right intrinsically. We have allowed ourselves to get on this treadmill of consumption creating economic growth creating consumption, and which incidentally requires an ever growing population to fuel increased consumption. I can't think of any way of getting off this treadmill without massive disruption and unemployment with the civil unrest, rioting etc that will bring.

Fundamentally, we're fucked as a civilisation, but then so has every one before us.

On that cheerful note......

S
 

QMuse

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I can't think of any way of getting off this treadmill without massive disruption and unemployment with the civil unrest, rioting etc that will bring.

Fundamentally, we're fucked as a civilisation, but then so has every one before us.

On that cheerful note......

S

Yep, the best system we invented so far is intrinsically unsustainable. :facepalm:
 

Tks

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Sadly, I think you're right in your analysis, but that doesn't make it right intrinsically. We have allowed ourselves to get on this treadmill of consumption creating economic growth creating consumption, and which incidentally requires an ever growing population to fuel increased consumption. I can't think of any way of getting off this treadmill without massive disruption and unemployment with the civil unrest, rioting etc that will bring.

Fundamentally, we're fucked as a civilisation, but then so has every one before us.

On that cheerful note......

S

Meh, first thing we could do is rid ourselves of politicians. Start employing empiricists and give them instructions of the goals we want to realize. Then let the tech sector and scientists come up with the AI solutions that will micromanage logistics of getting that done, so the volatile place that politicians employ, could be a little less volatile.

So the solution in theory isn't really too drastic (there will be perhaps entailment of getting rid of any economic avenues for things like billionaires ever existing again, but that's a bullet that must be bitten if you want to avoid the catastrophic downfall you hinted at, which might set us back centuries with the destruction of infrastructure that would occur).

The only actual impediment to solutions like this is the manipulation and power tactics the already powerful magnates of industry poses today. Simply put, they will not allow something like this to occur... Granting civil liberties as populations become very demanding from time to time, isn't so bad for the ruling class to dish out (by ruling class I mean rich families and the politicians they fund), so granting slowly things like in recent history of Gay Rights of marriage, isn't too much meat off their backs. Granting scientists, and ACTUAL democratic choice on how people want to govern their lives would be like selling their molar back teeth away. Sure these rulers might survive for a while, but it definitely isn't a fun existence, nor one they'd want to continue given the concessions their greedy selves would never truly put up with for a long time.

So while these rulers of society do make things go faster in some sense (like technological proliferation in the early phases of our modern society, by neglecting proper safety, and not abiding by decency expectations toward fellow humans and societies as a whole that MUST lose, in order for other societies to gain, their continued existence is what gives rise to the lunacy driven inefficiency we see in the global system of economics today (where even the halls of Ivy League schools are poisoned with idoitic twists and propaganda curriculum from the likes of Alan Greenspan who fancies himself an Adam Smith decendent in spirit).
 

anmpr1

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Which in my opinion should be made illegal. Rendering a television effectively unusable after only 5 years shouldn't be allowed. I have the same problem with operating systems that cause hardware to become obsolete. Stuff should work 'forever' in my view, software should never be allowed to render hardware obsolete.S.
I get what you are saying, but time moves on. Who wants to go back to the days of the 386SX-16, which ran DOS/programs ok, but hardly Win 3.x, and choked on OS/2 or NT? I mean, if you still have one of those machines and if it fires up you can use it with your dot matrix printer if you have the original software.

These days software is all about licensing and subscriptions. The idea of 'ownership' with anything proprietary is not part of the deal. And with 'older' hardware your automatic updates could very well break things. I've had that happen. But can you blame software companies for not wanting to support really old hardware?

Hi-Fi is sort of different. If my Benchmark amp breaks and the company goes south, or refuses to support it after the warranty expires then It's all over for me. I doubt it there will be any third parties willing or able to work on it. On the other hand, if my 60 year old Dyna amp breaks I can fix it myself. Have we really made social (not technical) progress? Each person can decide it for themselves.
 

maverickronin

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I get what you are saying, but time moves on. Who wants to go back to the days of the 386SX-16, which ran DOS/programs ok, but hardly Win 3.x, and choked on OS/2 or NT? I mean, if you still have one of those machines and if it fires up you can use it with your dot matrix printer if you have the original software.

Yes, but there are actual technical reasons for that instead of IP mongers merely declaring it so in a futile attempt to stop piracy.
 

anmpr1

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Yes, but there are actual technical reasons for that instead of IP mongers merely declaring it so in a futile attempt to stop piracy.
Some of the schemes used to foil piracy before on-line authentication were frustrating. I recall a friend who had a card game for his 486-66 DX2 (a screamin' machine back in the day). Whenever you started the game you had to go to a different page of the manual and enter a certain word--maybe the fourth word of the second paragraph--something like that, before the game would start. He misplaced his manual which toasted the game for him. LOL

I've reinstalled copies of OEM Windows on different machines (when the original machine broke) and was always able to authenticate it using the key codes--so I don't know how MS monitors it. Maybe for an individual it's not an issue for them.
 

maverickronin

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Some of the schemes used to foil piracy before on-line authentication were frustrating.

That's even worse because it will certainly stop working at some unspecified point in the future. At least if you kept your Dial-A-Pirate wheel it still works today...

I've reinstalled copies of OEM Windows on different machines (when the original machine broke) and was always able to authenticate it using the key codes--so I don't know how MS monitors it. Maybe for an individual it's not an issue for them.

MS pretty much stopped caring after they turned Windows into a spyware platform. You can leave W10 and Server 2016/19 unactivated forever and all you get is a watermark and the inability to change some taskbar settings.

Even without the spyware, that's still the correct business policy to take with regard to individuals because they keep their market share in business through all the software which only runs on Windows and they all the market share they can get to support that, no matter where it comes from.
 
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