Appies and refreshments will be served, industry reps will be in attendance, and attendees who fill in a ballot will be eligible to win prizes.
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Friday April 13 and Saturday April 14, Canadian dealer The HiFi Attic is holding events at its Vernon location (Friday, 3–9pm, 3108 30th Avenue, Vernon, BC V1T 2C2), and Kelowna location (Saturday, 10am–5pm, 1292 Ellis Street, Kelowna, BC V1Y 1Z4). Featured will be Bowers and Wilkins 700 series speakers—Kal Rubinson reviews the 702 S2 in the May Stereophile—AudioQuest, and BlueSound/MQA.
Whoever invented the adage "Good things come in small packages" wasn't into high-end audio. Most high-end products are huge and heavy, with massive power supplies, thick front panels, and battleship build quality. This dreadnought approach is justified if it directly affects the unit's sonic performance (as in the Mark Levinson No.31 transport, for example). In some products, however, the massive build can reflect a shotgun, overkill approach by the designer, or a mere fashion statement.
But can flyweight products hold their own musically with the behemoths of the High End? This question…
The 200 is also unusual in that Meridian makes all the pcbs and wrote the control software. Most manufacturers buy ready-built servo boards (and sometimes even the entire decoder board) and use the standard control software. Meridian has optimized servo performance with its own four-layer pcb (four-layer boards are expensive) and its own laser pickup control software. This is said to result in better sonic performance. Moreover, the 200 uses sophisticated tracking strategies to keep the laser on track, reportedly resulting in less error correction having to be performed on the recovered…
Sidebar 1: Review System
I auditioned the 263 and 200 on their own and together. Each was also compared separately to converters and transports I consider to be the best in their price ranges. The $799 Sumo Theorem has proven to be the converter to beat under $1000, and the PS Audio UltraLink and Proceed PDP 3 set the standard a few notches up at the $2000–$2500 price range. For an absolute reference, I compared the 263 to the Mark Levinson No.30 processor. The $2500 Proceed PDT 3 transport, which I raved about in the last issue, was on hand, as was the $8500 Mark Levinson No.31…
Sidebar 2: Measurements
The 263's output when driven by a full-scale (0dBFS) 1kHz digital input signal was 2.2V. Channel balance was excellent, with channel matching of 0.07dB. Output impedance measured a low 46 ohms across the band. DC offset levels were minimal, measuring 1.3mV (left channel) and 0.7mV (right channel). The 263 had no problem locking to 32kHz and 48kHz sampling rates, although as noted in the technical description, the double lock feature didn't engage at those input frequencies. Bob Stuart made clock-jitter measurements (using an FM demodulator, similar to the Meitner…
Sidebar 3: Specifications
Meridian 263: Digital to analog converter with Delta-Sigma conversion. Frequency response: 20Hz–20kHz ±0.2dB. Distortion: !x0.004%. Conversion: 8x-interpolation filter, 64x Delta-Sigma DAC. Input sampling frequency: 32kHz–48kHz. Inputs: One coaxial on RCA jack. Outputs: One single-ended stereo pair on RCA jacks.
Dimensions: 6.25" W by 3.9" H by 12.9" D. Weight: 8 lbs (shipping).
Price: $895 (1993); no longer available (2018).
Meridian 200: CD transport with remote control. Outputs: One coaxial (RCA jack), one optical (Toslink jack).…
A half-hour after the show opened (held today, tomorrow, and Sunday at the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel, 1551 Thoreau Drive North, Schaumburg, IL), this was the scene in front of the seminar center, where a presentation on Room EQ Wizard was about to start. With well over 160 exhibit and listening rooms and another 80 booths, and what must be every dealer in Illinois participating, this is the biggest consumer audio show to be held in the US in quite a while.
Typical of the booth exhibits at AXPONA was Audeze's, allowing hands-on listening.
A wall of Clearaudio…
If AXPONA seemed to get off to a slow start on the 4th floor of the Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel & Convention Center, it was only because, the second the clock struck 10am, huge numbers of people made a mad dash for the first level Marketplace. It was only after they had sated themselves with all the rare LPs and other paraphernalia they could find that they ventured forth into the great unknown.
It wasn't just the many equipment premieres that were unknowns; the spaces themselves were unfamiliar entities. As audiophiles traversed a good 165 active exhibits scattered across nine…
I usually wear all black, but to celebrate the exciting, circus-like vibe of AXPONA 2018, I'm wearing light colors—a decision made in part because AXPONA's own team members, including Liz Miller, their wonderful and talented Event Director, are all wearing black. I see them everywhere, encouraging visitors to "step right up for a really big show" under the spectacular high ceilings and dramatic architectural vistas of Chicago's Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center.
There are 165 listening rooms and 125 separate exhibits spread across nine floors, and the hallways aren't…
Most of my audio show experiences have been mixed, with strings of fine-sounding rooms punctuated by others that have sounded mediocre or worse. On the worst of days, the pattern has been reversed, with room after room sounding so dismal that I occasionally began to wonder if I was suffering from a temporary case of sonic indigestion. But on the Renaissance Schaumberg's 4th floor, despite room layouts that seemed to have been designed by the Son of the Set-up Demon himself, room after room delivered fine sound.
This was certainly the case in the Fidelis Music Systems room, where Stenheim…