I just came back from a DVD demo done by Meridian at Harvey's in Greenwich CT. I thought I'd share my impressions of the demo, store, etc..

This was my second time in a Harvey's (I dropped by the NY store this weekend). It is an interesting store. Somewhat high end, carrying: Meridian, Bryston...and trying to carry Martin Logan (the NY store had a pair of Stylos on display). The sales people were nice, didn't seem to apply too much pressure. I got the impression that it is 1/2 high end and 1/2 "nifty type store" aimed at the very rich who have money to blow on a whim (I gathered this impression from how B&O; was overtly displayed and how the Stylos seemed to be setup for "coolness" factor rather than sonic reasons).

The demo consisted of the Meridian DVD, Meridian 565 Processor, Runco projector and Runco line doubler. The speakers were digital active Meridians all around---I don't remember the model #'s but the mains retailed for around $10k and the center for $2.6k if that helps anyone identify them. They ran without a sub and had the 565 redirect the .1 channel to the speakers.

The video was rather good. We watched roughly 20 minutes of Waterworld, and another 15 of Apollo 13. I did not notice one digital artifact during either demo. I am not necessarily a videophile and I don't have trained eyes like some people (I don't own a laserdisc) so take that comment with a grain of salt. After the demo I did overhear one person ask the Meridian rep. about an artifact that he saw...the rep. dismissed it blaming it on the line doubler.

The audio...well I've heard such high praise for the Meridian speakers that I was actually a little dissapointed. The audio was very good... however I didn't think it was up to the quality expected for that price range. However, this may actually have been the result of set-up. For instance, I thought the dialogue was a little thin in places. This may have been due to the location of the center channel which was way up in the air (about 6' higher than the top of the mains). It also looked like it may have been aimed a little above our heads.

The bass was ok. It was clear that the DTS/ac3 soundtracks really boost the bass for effect in some places---resulting in a somewhat bloated sound. Usually this is ok if it adds enough excitement. However, without the subwoofer I didn't think that the bass was extremely deep...the end result in my opinion was a little too high of a "bass-bloat" to "bass-excitement" ratio.

Some other interesting things: I asked the Meridian rep. about their new 800 series. I thought, since it is a modular pre-amp, like the Theta Cassablanca, it would be aimed for the same market. Aparrently it is not. According to him it will cost around $10k+...about double what the Cassablanca sells for. When I mentioned the Theta the rep. implied, with some disdain, that the 565 is already enough competition for it. I guess time and the market will decide.

Anyways, the demo is going to travel to the New Jersey and New York City Harvey stores over the next few days so go check it out. I'd love to hear other peoples opinions as well.

Michael Ibrahim
wasfy@minerva.cis.yale.edu