Meridian Audio Speaker manual

In each article in this series, we will be looking at a differ ent aspect of the hi-fi signal chain – from sour ce to speaker . In view of its importance in the overall r eproduction of the sound, we ar e first going to consider what happens at the end of the line – the amplification sys- tem and the loudspeakers themselves, for it is here that[...]

If you examine the vast majority of cur- r ent – and past – hi-fi amplifiers and speakers, you will find the same story: a single channel of amplifi- cation handles the full audible frequency range of the system. A single pair of cables carries this signal to the loud- speaker cabinet, and inside the enclo- sure the high-level audio is split in[...]

However , such an approach – “bi-amp- ing” or “tri-amping” the system – is far too complex and prone to err or to be a very practical approach in the consumer field. The Active Loudspeaker Back in the mid-1970s, multi-amping was almost unknown. Even more unconventional was Meridian’ s first product, the M1 Active Speaker , which place[...]

range of loads, and so on. The common method of dealing with these possibili- ties is to give a power amplifier four times the current delivery capacity it needs; and give it and its power supply the ability to handle the strange loads likely to be encountered in use and abuse. Engineering for the unknown inevitably means over -engineering. But in [...]

To give an example from Meridian’ s product line, the DSP6000 includes four channels of 70W amplification.This is equiva- lent to about 1kW driving a conventional passive system. It is evident from these comparisons that an active system can produce sur- prisingly high levels from a significantly smaller amplification system. There ar e significa[...]

page 6 Meridian Loudspeakers: The DSP Path The Meridian Papers - 1 The electronics inside Meridian’ s DSP8000 system Power supply 5 x Power Amplifiers, one per set of drivers Crystal clocks Microprocessor Programmable Logic arrays Digital to Analogue Converters (four channels) Digital Signal Processing chips (Motorola DSP56362) Electronics Cabine[...]

Being able to deliver bass from an enclosure an eighth of the size is a use- ful ability , because it enables us to make loudspeakers that are physically the right size: on a human scale (see later). That means that they will fit into a room more easily , and take up less space. But it also means that stereo and sur- r ound imaging will be signific[...]

Because you are near er to the left speaker , the sound takes less time to travel from the speaker to your ears – and you are further fr om the right speaker , so the sound takes longer to arrive. Meridian’ s approach to “bal- ance”, using the power of DSP , auto- matically adjusts these subtle time delays, so wherever you decide to sit, si[...]

If you remove, or disconnect, the “head”, you can hear very little definition. Psychoacoustically we are at our best listening in small spaces, to loudspeakers that have similar physical characteristics to a speaking human being. Our loudspeakers are essentially “human-sized” because psychoacoustic r esearch indicates that humans ar e most [...]

page 10 Meridian Loudspeakers: The DSP Path The Meridian Papers - 1 Meridian Audio Limited Stonehill, Stukeley Meadows, Huntingdon, Cambridge PE29 6EX United Kingdom T el 44 (0)1480 445678 Fax 44 (0)1480 445686 Further technical details, images, product r eviews and company history are available fr om Meridian Audio or from our website, www .meridi[...]