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Meridian 800/861 Version 3 DVD-Audio Update

Meridian’s 800 Series has firmly established the ultimate benchmark for performance and architecture of top-class surround AV systems. The 800 CD/DVD Player and 861 Reference Surround Controller have both received numerous major industry awards for aspects of their performance: for surround sound, for stereo, as preamplifiers and as world-class CD and DVD players.

Important features of the 800 Series are modular hardware, card-based electronics and a basis of updateable software for all aspects of operation and signal-processing. Meridian has pioneered this approach in the 800 Series to allow owners to upgrade as technology and formats evolve. Over the three years since their debut, the 800 Series has been continually improved, maintaining its industry-leading position for sound and picture quality, features and facilities. All these improvements have been made available to existing owners.

Meridian is proud to announce Version 3, a significantly advanced version of both 800 and 861. As before, existing owners can upgrade.

800 Series Version 3

Although presaged by the exciting addition of DVD-Audio, Version 3 significantly raises the performance of the 800 Series in nearly every area. Both products receive new, more powerful DSP engines to enable ultra-high precision processing on up to 8 channels running at 96kHz. This additional computing power is used to add facilities, extreme transparency and exciting new sound-field options for all media.

In a revolutionary change to the playback system architecture, the Meridian 800 now provides high-resolution multichannel outputs and a unique way of presenting movie sound.

MHR Smart Link

MHR Smart Link is a proprietary digital multichannel connection that allows the 800 Player to feed high-resolution audio directly to the 861 Reference Surround Controller or to Meridian’s DSP loudspeakers. The MHR Smart Link uses proprietary encryption and signaling technology; the first digital connection to be officially sanctioned for DVD-Audio content.

To obtain the most transparent sound Meridian’s link also features unique low-jitter technology. For the first time, the full resolution of multichannel audio from DVD-Audio recordings (as well as those from CD and DVD-Video) can be losslessly transferred in the digital domain from a player to a surround controller and on to the loudspeakers.

Working together

The MHR Smart Link has profound ramifications for the system. By passing the signals at full resolution between 800 and 861, the system can provide perfect and unified bass management for all sources where it belongs – in the surround controller.

861 receives the full bandwidth and resolution of the original recording allowing it to offer the highest possible sound quality on both its exquisite studio-grade analogue outputs (for conventional, analogue-domain amplifiers and speakers), or on individual MHR-capable digital outputs (for the multiple DSP speakers of a Meridian Digital Theater).

The MHR Smart Link also passes information about the disc content, whether it be high resolution multichannel or stereo from DVD-Audio, CD, Dolby Digital or DTS on a movie or PCM from a music video.

This means that with no intervention from the user, the 861 can automatically select the optimum DSP modes and speaker settings for movies, for music, for stereo and multichannel sources – a welcome feature at a time when the ever-expanding offerings of source formats holds the potential for considerable confusion.

Multichannel system architecture

Meridian’s 800 Series now has comprehensive DVD-Audio capability with full multichannel support for high resolution sources throughout the entire system.

Meridian have re-defined optimum movie playback in this latest series. 800 now has the option to decode movies inside the player, and there are a number of benefits to this approach. By taking the Dolby Digital decoding task from the 861, it is freed up to apply its considerable signal processing power to optimize resolution – typically working at 48-bit internal precision. Meanwhile the extensive DSP power in 800 is used to provide upsampling and resolution enhancement for all sources including CD and DVD-Video. Until you have experienced movies in 96kHz/24-bit resolution you might find it hard to anticipate this huge improvement to movie sound. Important low-level details and a much clearer sense of space bring intimacy to Dolby Digital sound tracks. A lasting impression of this new 800 Series is greater and more natural dynamic contrasts.

The 800 Player can optionally upscale the audio from any disc (including DVD-Audio) and send it, via MHR Smart Link, to the 861 for further processing – which may include upsampling, bass management and upscaling for playback with as many as eight channels and ten speakers.

DVD-Audio

DVD-Audio offers up to 6 channels of 96kHz/24-bit audio direct from the recording studio, using the disc’s large capacity to deliver vivid, life-like surround recordings. DVD-Audio also offers the same ultra-high quality in stereo and many discs provide additional content, such as menus, pictures and video clips.

Meridian was an important contributor to the DVD-Audio standard, which mandates MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing) as the format for the highest quality sound. We are in a unique position to understand all the nuances of this exciting new format.

Without question, DVD-Audio offers the highest sound quality option for music in the home and the 800 gives simple access to all the content. In the 800 we have control over all aspects of the playback process and have developed a user-friendly interface for all media – including DVD-Audio – as well as providing the highest possible sound and picture quality.

Now, with the 800 Series, we offer a playback system where the original audio can be passed without degradation all the way from the recording studio to the loudspeaker. High resolution multichannel pushes the boundaries of technology, and we are proud of our achievement in the 800 Series: the sound is exquisite.

800 Reference CD/DVD Player

The 800 CD/DVD Player has been radically updated to add support for DVD-Audio. It stands alone as a uniquely capable full-function player, with unparalleled performance on CD, DVD-Audio and DVD-Video sources. Meridian's proprietary disc navigation and decoding architecture provide the highest quality signals while exclusive multiple-FIFO data buffering eliminates time-domain errors. The net result is sound quality that exceeds any previous design. Just as important, these techniques have further improved picture quality: 800 again re-defines the best available from DVD.

Considerable work has been done in this upgrade to offer yet further improvements in CD playback. Meridian and their 800 Series already have worldwide acclaim for CD performance, playability and navigation and the latest enhancements in 800 affirm this.

The 800 and 861 combination offers upsampled multichannel playback of CD sources, using the huge DSP power on hand to double the effective sampling frequency, to use 48-bit internal precision and to render up to eight channels.

As before, 800 can be fitted with analogue and/or digital inputs and, of course, the user can specify digital or analogue outputs with up to 192kHz 24-bit precision.

861 Reference Surround Controller

The 861 boasts a newly developed digital signal processing engine with unprecedented power, flexibility, and future configurability. Raw processing power is vital, but so is throughput, and this new design is capable of running more channels at 96kHz; allowing expanded options for speaker arrays: more subwoofers or additional speakers for height.

861 provides full support for multichannel inputs (both analogue and digital) and several new DSP modes have been added to support these.

The addition of MHR Smart Link gives 861 the unique ability to automatically adjust speaker and processor settings for each incoming format from 800. A vital benefit is that bass management can be automatically optimum for each input medium.

Meridian’s proprietary resolution-enhancement process that increases the sampling frequency and word length of source material to double-rate 24-bit has been a key feature in the 800 Series from the outset. Now, for the first time we enable the processor to upsample up to eight channels with superb results.

Meridian’s 861 is the first surround controller to provide full support for new DVD-Audio recordings that include height – so-called 2+2+2 formats. These new recordings assign the six disc channels as two main speakers, two height speakers and two rear speakers. This system can be set up alongside an existing Meridian theatre.

The original capabilities of the 861 are all retained. These include 7.1 Dolby Digital, THX, EX, DTS, Meridian EZ, support for 2+2+2 playback, Dolby ProLogic II processing for stereo and matrix-encoded sources, discrete Ambisonics, MPEG, MP3 and the full panoply of Meridian’s proprietary modes for reproducing stereo and multichannel recordings with unmatched depth, dynamic detail, and spatial precision.

Being card-based, the 861 offers a range of options including output capabilities of 192kHz or 96kHz/24-bit analogue. New cards include a range of extremely high resolution multichannel analogue inputs which allow 861 to fully support the many DVD-Audio or SACD players with analogue outputs. The new DSP engine is designed to allow future updates of software.

More information

This update supplements our data sheets, FAQs and other brochure material on the 800 and 861. Please contact your dealer for further information.

Use 800 Series with:

Use 861 with:

DSP8000 Speaker

DSP6000 Speaker

DSP5500 Speaker

DSP5000 Speaker

559 Power

558 Power

556 Power

D2500 Subwoofer

D1500 Subwoofer

504 FM Tuner

MSR Remote

Technical Specification

See 800 and 861.

See 800 Series Brochure

800 Manual

861 Manual

Data Sheet

General Brochure

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