Audio Video News

British audio technology company Meridian Audio, Ltd. has announced important upgrades to Version 3 of its 800 optical disc player and 861 reference surround controller, including proprietary encryption and signaling technology.

The 800/861 combination is the first system to be officially sanctioned for DVD-Audio content protection, thanks to the MHR Smart Link, a digital multichannel technique that allows signals originating in the 800 player and processed by the 861 surround controller to be transmitted in bandwidth-unlimited form directly to Meridian's family of DSP loudspeakers. The technology addresses all of the entertainment industry's concerns about copyright management. The Smart Link system means full resolution in every channel, with bass management taking place in the surround controller, for the highest possible sound quality. The 861 controller also sports an array of high-rez "studio grade" analog outputs for use with speakers and amplifiers from other manufacturers.

Automated perfection: The MHR Smart Link also lets the 861 automatically select optimum DSP modes and settings for movies, for music, for stereo sources and for multichannel sources. With no intervention from the user, the 861 can provide optimum processing for any source - including Dolby Digital or DTS movies, and DVD-Audio recordings. Ordinary CDs benefit from upsampling and resolution enhancement, and automated decoding and surround sound processing minimize the chance for user confusion, Meridian claims.

At the heart of the 861 surround controller is a newly developed digital signal processing engine with unprecedented power and flexibility - typically working at 48-bit internal precision. "The improvements in Version 3 of the 800 series are ground-breaking, technically sophisticated, and herald the system architecture and benchmark for all high-performance AV systems for the future. Importantly, the performance gains are anything but incremental," stated Meridian chairman Bob Stuart.

"But the benefits of Version 3 are not just for DVD-Audio discs," Stuart continues. "We have been astonished by the results when our special upsampling/resolution-enhancement process is applied to movie sound. Important low-level details and a much clearer sense of space bring intimacy to many Dolby Digital sound tracks - without of course sacrificing impact when needed. 800 and 861 have opened our ears to a multichannel movie experience that we had not fully anticipated." Both support up to eight channels of high-resolution audio.

The Meridian 800 and 861 also work perfectly as stand-alone player and processor. Both are future-proof with upgrades to be made available as plug-in circuit cards. The latest and best from Meridian are priced for the upper end of the home entertainment market. The 800 and 861 each vary from $17,000 to $20,000 depending on configuration.