Meridian Demonstrates New Generation Of Its Acclaimed DSP Loudspeaker

[The following is a release from Meridian]

March 14, 2008

Meridian Audio Limited, the British firm whose recognition as a world leader in digital audio and video technologies for music and home-theater systems dates to the earliest days of consumer digital media, is demonstrating its latest DSP Loudspeaker in a special exhibit at the Rosen Plaza Hotel, Presidential Suite (14th floor) during the 2008 Electronic House Expo (EHX), March 13th-15th. Meridian’s new DSP7200 model is a substantially upgraded version of the highly acclaimed DSP7000, or is perhaps better described as “scaled-down” from the company’s famous flagship design, the DSP8000. Like all Meridian’s DSP Loudspeakers, the DSP7200 combines state-of-the-art driver and enclosure engineering with multiple, on-board amplifiers for the dynamics and freedom from distortion that only active-speaker design can deliver. The result, common to all Meridian’s DSP Loudspeakers, is a degree of dynamic power and of tonal and spatial accuracy that simply is not achievable via conventional, passive-speaker technologies, however sophisticated. DSP7200 is the first of Meridian’s DSP Loudspeaker range to include the company’s latest input-board architecture, which employs standard, RJ45 (Ethernet) ports for “Meridian Comms” interconnection, delivering the simplicity and elegance of installation via inexpensive, commonly available, and easily custom-run CAT5 cabling. The DSP7200 also features extensively re-designed internal electronics and advanced new software, along with upgraded transducer drive units, and power amplifiers that bring it dramatically close to the remarkable performance of the legendary DSP8000. “With the DSP7200, we are evolving our digital loudspeakers in an important direction,” says Meridian co-founder and Chairman Bob Stuart. “Our concept of the digital-active DSP Loudspeaker is thoroughly proven as the most musically, dynamically accurate and effective way, by far, to tackle sound reproduction. We recognize that Meridian DSP speakers will never be price-competitive with mass-market passive speakers, any more than is the London Symphony Orchestra with a garage band, but in the DSP7200 Meridian boasts a new model that delivers all of the technology’s virtues, and fulfills the demands of even the most critical playback, at a significantly more accessible cost.” Like all of Meridian’s DSP Loudspeakers, the DSP7200’s design rests on the pillars of digital signal processing for crossover filtering and all other signal manipulation, and multi-amplified active-speaker topology in which each individual driver is served by a dedicated amplifier channel. The advantages of these concepts are irrefutable: employing ultraaccurate DSP makes possible crossover characteristics and precision that are simple not possible for any passive, analog-domain system, for a perfection of driver-integration that is otherwise unobtainable. Additionally, individually powering each driver after the dividing network pays dramatic dividends in enhanced dynamic potential, reduced distortion, and idealized time-domain behavior. Each DSP7200 accepts a digital bitstream directly from a Meridian preamplifier, CD or DVD player, or AV system-controller, accommodating bitstreams up to 96/24 including the company’s proprietary Meridian High Resolution (MHR) up-sampled, enhancedresolution format. This arrangement eliminates analog speaker cabling and its associated losses, colorations, and clutter. And with the latest adoption of RJ45 connectors in the 7200’s redesigned connector panel—which is now recessed to conceal unsightly cable entry—all high-resolution audio data, together with Meridian Comms for intercomponent communications and control, and RS232 interfacing for system control, can run via a single CAT5 cable, providing matchless elegance and simplicity of installation. Most importantly, Meridian’s DSP Loudspeaker concept brings unique opportunities for optimization of driver/amplifier/enclosure systems, while giving listeners unprecedented control over music and cinema-sound playback. Whether in a two-channel system or as part of a multichannel home-theater array, the DSP7200 enables precision command of frequency balance, listening axis and time-compensated balance, and, of course, master volume — all implemented utterly transparently using DSP—to provide an unequalled degree of speaker-room and listenerpreference tailoring. The new DSP7200 features the cabinet structure crafted from Meridian’s innovative, multi-layered “sandwich” of selected woods and metal, formed in curved, pressure-laminated panels that produce almost perfectly vibration- and resonance-free enclosures, for impressive freedom from coloration. The exteriors of these unique cabinets are painstakingly finished in Meridian’s trademark gloss piano-black lacquer, or silver lacquer. Availability: Now Shipping Manufacturer’s Suggested: $34,995

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