The High End is a tidily ordered world. There are CD players, transports, and processors used to play stereo recordings and drive stereo preamplifiers. There are stereo or mono amplifiers used to drive a pair of speakers. And then there is the British high-end company Meridian, run by one J. Robert Stuart, one of audio's deeper thinkers and a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society. Meridian does it their way. They put their amplifiers <I>inside</I> their speakers. Heck, Meridian even puts their D/A processors inside their speakers when they can. And two speakers to play back stereo recordings? Meridian believes in re-creating the original soundfield no matter how many speakers and channels it takes to do it right. And they do it sufficiently successfully that their Digital Theatre system, which does all of the above, was one of <I>Stereophile</I>'s joint Home Theater products of 1995. [<I>See also the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/201/">2000 review</A> of their Series 800 Digital Theatre.&mdash;Ed.</I>]

The High End is a tidily ordered world. There are CD players, transports, and processors used to play stereo recordings and drive stereo preamplifiers. There are stereo or mono amplifiers used to drive a pair of speakers. And then there is the British high-end company Meridian, run by one J. Robert Stuart, one of audio's deeper thinkers and a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society. Meridian does it their way. They put their amplifiers <I>inside</I> their speakers. Heck, Meridian even puts their D/A processors inside their speakers when they can. And two speakers to play back stereo recordings? Meridian believes in re-creating the original soundfield no matter how many speakers and channels it takes to do it right. And they do it sufficiently successfully that their Digital Theatre system, which does all of the above, was one of <I>Stereophile</I>'s joint Home Theater products of 1995. [<I>See also the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/201/">2000 review</A> of their Series 800 Digital Theatre.&mdash;Ed.</I>]

The High End is a tidily ordered world. There are CD players, transports, and processors used to play stereo recordings and drive stereo preamplifiers. There are stereo or mono amplifiers used to drive a pair of speakers. And then there is the British high-end company Meridian, run by one J. Robert Stuart, one of audio's deeper thinkers and a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society. Meridian does it their way. They put their amplifiers <I>inside</I> their speakers. Heck, Meridian even puts their D/A processors inside their speakers when they can. And two speakers to play back stereo recordings? Meridian believes in re-creating the original soundfield no matter how many speakers and channels it takes to do it right. And they do it sufficiently successfully that their Digital Theatre system, which does all of the above, was one of <I>Stereophile</I>'s joint Home Theater products of 1995. [<I>See also the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/201/">2000 review</A> of their Series 800 Digital Theatre.&mdash;Ed.</I>]

The High End is a tidily ordered world. There are CD players, transports, and processors used to play stereo recordings and drive stereo preamplifiers. There are stereo or mono amplifiers used to drive a pair of speakers. And then there is the British high-end company Meridian, run by one J. Robert Stuart, one of audio's deeper thinkers and a Fellow of the Audio Engineering Society. Meridian does it their way. They put their amplifiers <I>inside</I> their speakers. Heck, Meridian even puts their D/A processors inside their speakers when they can. And two speakers to play back stereo recordings? Meridian believes in re-creating the original soundfield no matter how many speakers and channels it takes to do it right. And they do it sufficiently successfully that their Digital Theatre system, which does all of the above, was one of <I>Stereophile</I>'s joint Home Theater products of 1995. [<I>See also the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com//digitalsourcereviews/201/">2000 review</A> of their Series 800 Digital Theatre.&mdash;Ed.</I>]

<I>"He was a warrior...What he did was pry a chink out of the wall and let the light come through the hole. It's up to us to keep that hole open. We've got a world to save. This guy is going to kick our ass if we get up there and we haven't carried the torches."</I><BR>---Ken Kesey, Funeral for Jerry Garcia, 8/11/95

<I>"He was a warrior...What he did was pry a chink out of the wall and let the light come through the hole. It's up to us to keep that hole open. We've got a world to save. This guy is going to kick our ass if we get up there and we haven't carried the torches."</I><BR>---Ken Kesey, Funeral for Jerry Garcia, 8/11/95

<I>"He was a warrior...What he did was pry a chink out of the wall and let the light come through the hole. It's up to us to keep that hole open. We've got a world to save. This guy is going to kick our ass if we get up there and we haven't carried the torches."</I><BR>---Ken Kesey, Funeral for Jerry Garcia, 8/11/95

<I>"He was a warrior...What he did was pry a chink out of the wall and let the light come through the hole. It's up to us to keep that hole open. We've got a world to save. This guy is going to kick our ass if we get up there and we haven't carried the torches."</I><BR>---Ken Kesey, Funeral for Jerry Garcia, 8/11/95

<I>"He was a warrior...What he did was pry a chink out of the wall and let the light come through the hole. It's up to us to keep that hole open. We've got a world to save. This guy is going to kick our ass if we get up there and we haven't carried the torches."</I><BR>---Ken Kesey, Funeral for Jerry Garcia, 8/11/95

<I>"He was a warrior...What he did was pry a chink out of the wall and let the light come through the hole. It's up to us to keep that hole open. We've got a world to save. This guy is going to kick our ass if we get up there and we haven't carried the torches."</I><BR>---Ken Kesey, Funeral for Jerry Garcia, 8/11/95