EXTREME ENGINEERING

from EI Speaker Supplement 2022

EDITOR’S COMMENT

MERIDIAN AUDIO – EXTREME ENGINEERING TAKES LOUDSPEAKER PERFORMANCE AND DESIGN TO NEW EXTREMES

Meridian has always thought about how you experience sound and how it makes you feel. It continues to challenge convention, push boundaries and launch products that have created new possibilities in sound.

The companies ground-breaking Extreme Engineering Programme commenced more than six years ago. It is the result of significant investment and research at the extreme edge of audio design and built upon the fundamental and unique elements 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 which includes all of its software and hardware platforms. Some elements of the programme have been incorporated into current products but the full force of this extreme engineering is unveiled for the first time in Meridian’s flagship DSP8000 XE Loudspeaker.

A NEW DESIGN CONCEPT – PRECISION SONIC TRANSPORT

The DSP8000 XE is built on a brand-new audio architecture, using higher specification, more powerful components and leveraging all of Meridian’s expertise in psychoacoustics to achieve exceptional sound quality. It sees the first implementation of the Precision Sonic Transport design concept – a whole 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 when it arrives at the ear of the listener.

The highest specification components are combined with a new audio architecture to deliver a new level of sonic realism – Meridian always places the listener at the heart of the performance.

ENGINEERING AT THE HEART - ATLAS SOFTWARE CORE

The all-new Atlas Software Core is 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 new enhancement technologies and features. It also allows even more performance to be extracted and delivered from Meridian’s existing proprietary audio technologies

While the Atlas Software Core is at the heart of the product, it is far more than just that. It is the driving force behind the intelligent flow of audio throughout the loudspeaker. We think of the Atlas Software Core as the brain of the loudspeaker, controlling how its components perform and work together but also carrying out a wide range of other, higher-level tasks and functions.

The powerful processing means there’s huge flexibility with loudspeaker placement – the DSP8000 XE is well suited to the home installation market and can deliver an incredible experience for music, movies and media in all types of listening environment. Meridian’s unique DSP technologies ensure that whatever recording you are listening to, and wherever you listen to it, it is delivered as accurately as possible.

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, ensuring that the utmost detail and accuracy is maintained.

There are also system optimisation technologies – Bespoke Signal Mapping, Full Frequency Alignment, Perfect Balance, Free-Q and E3 Bass – that overcome inherent acoustic limitations to the system that cannot be fixed elsewhere.

The DSP8000 XE also includes Meridian’s performance management technologies, ProActive Bass and Pro-Active Thermal, that actively monitor the loudspeaker in real time, ensuring that it is always operating at its best.

Finally, there are playback enhancement technologies, like Image Focus, that allow the user to adjust the playback system to suit their own personal listening environment – the only part of the system that loudspeaker designers don’t have control over.

The result is an incredibly accurate reproduction of whatever you are listening to, uncovering unrivalled detail and ensuring complete emotional connection.

Meridian’s challenge was how to make the complex simple and keep the technical beautiful – the DSP8000 XE represents a real step change in loudspeaker design, and it’s the embodiment of Meridian challenging itself.

Extreme Engineering is the key to this success. It is a major advance in the design and performance of Meridian DSP Digital Active loudspeakers, achieving a level of sound quality which exceeds that of any previous Meridian loudspeaker.

Utilising all of Meridian’s experience, expertise and continuous investment in research and audio technology development, it delivers a ‘holographic’ sound experience that’s so immersive it’s as if the loudspeakers aren’t in the room.

Our goal is to enable people to listen, enjoy and fall in love with their music and movies, wherever they are, and to make listeners feel something when they listen to their favourite artist, track or performance.

This is the start of an exciting new era for Meridian, its team, its business partners and its customers – the next step on a mission to create better sound for more people.

For further information on Meridian’s Extreme Engineering approach and the new DSP8000 XE loudspeaker visit, https://www. meridian-audio.com.

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