ESSENTIAL DbM
A MERRY OLD TIME AT MERIDIAN
Has Meridian pushed speaker performance even higher?
EI spent a great day at the recent the DbM event, enjoying many new introductions from established brands in the group, Meridian Audio itself as well as an intriguing new brand too. The demonstration parts of these regular events are always a big highlight. This year was no different with lots of great audio-visual treats to experience, however it has to be said at EI’s favourite on the day was the highly impressive new DSP8000 XE Meridian speaker. The company’s Extreme Engineering Programme commenced more than six years ago and was tasked with ringing every last drop out of Meridian’s approach to delivering an authentic, natural and lifelike listening experience. The programme was established to re-imagine each element of Meridian’s system approach, including software and hardware platforms. Meridian’s flagship DSP8000 XE is the first product to benefit fully from this programme. The speaker is built on a brand-new audio architecture, using higher specification, more powerful components and leveraging all of Meridian’s expertise in psychoacoustics. It sees the first implementation of the Precision Sonic Transport design concept – a new way of using innovative techniques and processes to ensure the entire journey taken by an audio signal through a Meridian product maintains maximum sonic fidelity. The all-new Atlas Software Core is described as a future facing audio processing and control platform and is host to Meridian’s most powerful DSP engine to date. Atlas Software Core enables the implementation of
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new enhancement technologies and features, allowing more performance to be extracted and delivered from Meridian’s existing proprietary audio technologies. The powerful processing means there’s huge flexibility with loudspeaker placement with the product well suited to the home installation market and can deliver an impressive experience for music, movies and media in all types of listening environment. Signal conditioning technologies such as True Link, Digital Precision, True Time and Q-Sync make the most of the digital audio signal delivered to the DSP8000 XE. Barry Sheldrick, Director of Sales at Merdian Audio, says, “I’ve been hosting plenty of demonstrations of our new DSP8000 XE speakers and the best part for everyone is that I honestly don’t have to say anything. “The look on the faces of the people and their natural response is absolute gold dust. They are genuinely lost for words and smiling in equal measure, itching to share what they have heard (usually for the first time) on a favourite track they have played, perhaps, thousands of times before.” Barry adds, “They talk about how wide the sound stage is, how they feel like they are in the recording and, generally, find it hard to stop playing song after song! It’s the same story in our Reference Theatre. The sheer power and
scale of three DSP8000 XE loudspeakers blows everyone away. They have a tremendous presence and authority which most people simply have never experienced before and, in a home cinema environment, they sound absolutely unreal! “The great thing is that it gets all of us talking excitedly about high quality audio in an inclusive way; this isn’t just an experience that audio geeks get excited about, this is one that absolutely everyone enjoys.”
GO BIG AND GO HOME
Elsewhere, DbM was showcasing ‘the next and best big thing’ for large, open plan media rooms with the 3000mm wide Modular Seamless Display (MSD) from LG that will be fully supported with an attractive package for integrators, covering delivery and installation right through to aftercare and maintenance. The new MSD 3000 from LG is bigger by a huge 38in than any conventional TV display. Perfect for bright environments, it features 3 in 1 surface mounted diodes (SMD) and fine pitch RGB LED technology to deliver a vivid, punchy image with bold colours and strong contrast for large living rooms and open plan spaces. Comprising of 72 individual tiles, the SMDs deliver an impressive quality of picture at a wide viewing angle with no screen burn.
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