That was my Meridian 506, which I acquired from a guy who pulled it out of e-waste! just goes to show, with a little effort, a lot of these things can be brought back to life. Very nice work Andrew, great to hear it singing again :-)
I owned the 506 16 bit for 15 years bought in 1995. It was the most analog sounding CD players I’ve owned. The 508 20 bit, however was much clearer and dynamic.
@@techrider2088 the CEC i own ,the critics wrotte , "the most analog cd player in the world" i thought that was related with the fact that is belt driven
This is a timely video. I just purchased a Meridian G07 Cd player on the second hand market earlier this week. I had always wanted a Meridian cd player since I heard the 508.24 in the early 2000s, which I remember sounding amazing. The 508.24 still holds its value so well so I could not afford one, but found a well cared for G07 in my budget. It sounds really nice. I also have a Denafrips Ares II DAC for streaming, which I love, but there is something about a well designed CD player and listening to physical media which I will always have a soft spot for.
Hey do you use the dac on the cd player or the denafrips!! Was just wondering if the internal dac in the meridian stacks up with the more modern even if the design is super retro Aries 2
@@rangerscoach I use the internal DAC on the G07, which I believe is a multi-bit Analog Devices DAC, when I'm listening to CD's, but I prefer the sound of my streamer paired with the Ares. I think the Meridian 508.24 could compete with the Denafrips, but the G07 cannot.
I have the 508.24. Same skipping problem. I have dropped it by a repair shop. This video is a fantastic guide. I really appreciate all the care you put into this video, I learned alot. Thanks.
I had this player back in 97 and loved the sound. First time a cd player really impressed me. Sound was engaging with a richness and a sense of musicality that i didnt think was possible from digital at that time. I often think back to when i owned this player and wish i still had it in my system. Cheers for sharing this video
97 there were already cd players that are still very good today, the problem is the format because other digital sources in the 80´s sounded several times better than the cd, don´t know if it´s related with the change of material to make them afordable to everyone, but the first cds i bought were much better than what is sold today ,they can be washed with a cloth under running water ,after all these years they lost the brightness, but they don´t skip a single second the same i can not say of others bought after 2000, and not related with the time of the cd. I bought in the 80´s a Pioneer PD-7300 and it still read all cds ,only was cleaned and tuned, some say it´s still a good cd player
I am still using my Merdian 208 CD player I bought new in 1990 along with a pair of Meridian M20 active speakers. A couple of years ago, I added a KEF 400Q active subwoofer to fill out the low bass (KEF made the drive units for the M20's). It is still a delight to listen to. A rich, warm, detailed, smooth sound.
I still have my M20’s although my 207-14 is currently not working-thinking about getting it repaired. I also have 201, 204, a pair of 205’s, 209. Cheers. Nice video, thxs
CD transport vs DAC. It would be interesting to hook those Transports up to the same DAC and see if there is a difference. We know DACs can make a big difference. Another thing about cheap vs Expensive CD players is longevity, in my experience. Typically your cheaper players don’t last as long and are not worth fixing, as it is cheaper to buy a new one. Thanks for the video. It was fun to watch.
Yes, there are quality differences between transport as well. I owned an Denafrips Avatar transport; really very good, but when I compared it with a Jay's Audio CDT3 MK3, the latter was clearly the better! Same quality DAC ofcourse ( Meitner MA1 MK2).
@@paulb.3227 Thanks for replying Paul. I’m going to check if any of my cheap DVD\CD players have an optical out and if they do I’ll compare one them to my Cambridge Audio CD transport. (Not that it’s all that Hi End but it did cost more than $30. Lol) I was kind of thinking if it played it played and it was really all about the DAC.
@@BobTrainor it is all about the dac the notion that transports sound different is silly ASF really. They all do the same thing they read a CD format that's it. It's like claiming that cheaper hard drive sounds different than a expensive one...they don't.
Lovely solid machine. I used to have a 206, along with a 201 preamp and 205 mono amps. Never had trouble with skipping but the displays were a bit dodgy!
I bought a Meridian 508.20 back in 1996 or 1997, and subsequently had it updated to the 24-bit DAC. I finally sold it in 2022, after 25 years of faithful service. Wonderful unit. I don't spin many CDs these days, so I replaced it with a much cheaper Musical Fidelity CD player that I run through a Denifrips Ares II DAC. It is amazing how well the old Meridian CD players/DACs still compete with modern gear.
It really is, and i just brought a meridian Hifi tonight circa 2000-2005. So that will be featured in an upcoming video. My partner actually said why would an old CD player be any good, I said well it was the heyday, thats when folks listened to cds.
My previous cd was a TEAC then changed to Micromega CD30. OMG, what a difference, more depth, more details, so much better. Extra money makes a big difference.
You’re mainly hearing the differences between the DAC in each player, as others have commented. I have a Rotel from the 90s and playing DSOM simultaneously on that and streaming from Spotify through my Modi 3, I can’t really tell the difference which tells me that units from the 90s which at the time cost a lot more than they do now really spent a lot more on their DAC chips than units that you can buy now.
I’ve had a 506, 508 and 500. They all have these issues. And always will, the issues you show will eventually return. I gave up on Meridian CD players. I still have a 568.2, it’s working flawlessly and has done since 1999. As some of your other comments mentioned, it’s the DAC’s that make it sound good. The 568 gave me that detailed sound with almost any CD transport. Now I use the PC, sounds great into the Meridian DAC’s.
I am very happy to see the innards of the Meridian 506. It proves to be very impressively built. There countless examples with similar price tags but nothing inside to equal such construction. However, I would not recommend attempting to fix a cd player to anyone who is not qualified (i.e. trained) to fix such devices. Chances are that by attempting to clean parts such as e.g., the lens, one can inadvertently damage permanently the lens coating or even the lens suspension. Besides, even if no damage to the lens ensues, the cause of the cd player problem might be electronic fault or overall parts degradation, e.g. the laser diode maybe past its best and the same can be the case for other parts inside. Gradually parts falling out of spec over time, abuse or excessive use or prolongued disuse could take their toll on the device and lead to faults. A qualified technician is best equipped to diagnose the problems in a cd player and the procedure is not to be trifled with.
I replaced a fairly basic (but still audiophile) cd player with an Audiolab cd transport. I spent some time comparing the digital output of the Marantz with the Audiolab. I have a couple of dacs and, obviously, tried both into both. The Audiolab is significantly better across the board. I also tried the comparison with a number of friends - both audiophile and otherwise - with the same result. I will leave it to others to explain why this might be - but the result was conclusive.
Great video. Clear, concise and personable. I'm actually looking at a Meridian 506 on our local market site so this was very useful. I'm only worried these players are getting a little old. Still, seems a very nice sounding player.
I had a G06 cd player, one cd was skipping while I was sleeping, when I woke up the player was completely blocked, I had to unplug the power cable to get it working again. Never again Meridian
I am not saying that no one can ever hear any kind of difference between any two cd players. However, you are practically guaranteed to hear a "difference" in a non-level-matched sighted test.
Most old CD players that run'use the Philips made cdm4/19 laser mechanism will still play & sound great in 2024 keep away from sony laser mechs as most will have failed u now lol Not the best
I had the original Meridian 207 CD player and then 208. I still have the 208 with the matching M30 mk2 active speakers, but I mainly use the speakers with a Bluesound Node 2i for streaming. This is a very streamlined minimalistic setup and these M30s still 'blows away' many modern speakers. They are pure analogue class A amplification - NO DSP. Modern active HiFi speakers are all digital with DSP.
My Multiple Sclerosis has damaged the nerves/lesions on my brain that processes audio from my ears. Although I was only diagnosed at 51, I have been sick with it since my 20’s when I just had to stop listening to cd’s the way I enjoyed lps. Digital hits my ears like a beam, without the wave of sound that vinyl produces. I just recently got my records out and I have once again been able to enjoy music at levels that I used to. I’m looking for help in being able to listen to the cds’s I purchased so long ago. Thank god most of my music is on vinyl. If anyone has heard a cd/digital with the fidelity of lps, please reach out. It may be worth buying one of these older units. Cheers for making this video🥂!
@@peterlarkin762 cheers-I’ve asked so many times on different videos and this is the first response I’ve received. I will check this out. Have you used one? Anything to report? Can it take a signal from my iMac desktop? I’ll check out the specs…..probably won’t understand half of it but appreciate a place to start. Cheers’
Definitely a second for Denafrips. I have the Pontus II 12th anniversary and it makes everything sound like it’s got that vinyl sheen but has a greater dynamic range. I have mine running off a Mac Mini using Apple Music. As it is two channel audio, I use the Apple TV for music with Spatial Audio through the AV reveiver into a 5.1.4 system with a separate power amp for the front speakers. A simple USB connects the Mac and the Pontus (I’m not a believer in cable-magic) and I run HDMI to my receiver for video playback if I need) albeit in stereo. In your case I’d suggest IMac to Denafrips via USB and USB to stereo receiver (or what other pre-amp/receiver etc) you have to speakers.
@@steven2809 Gotta tell ya….my ears don’t lie and disease lies even less. I missed my music for years and I had a decent Nak Cd player, IMac digital and it killed the ears. Brain lesions don’t lie no matter what you say. No offense….
Just retrieved my 30 year old Luxman cd player out of the basement when my Panasonic blu ray bit the dust. Sounds fine. I don't plan on comparing. Playing through a Yamaha Receiver and homemade Khorns with 12 inch sub.
I replaced a 1987 Bang & Olufsen Beogram CD3300 CD player for a brand new Denon DCD 800NE CD player and the sound difference is like night and day. 16 bit DAC vs 32 bit DAC in the Denon. I use it with my 1985 made B&O Beomaster 5000 with B&O Beovox S45-2 speakers. Its a sinple but elegant setup and a great listening experience for my huge CD collection
Not quite....it depends whether the CD player buffers the output from the disc, re-reads the sectors and the error correction level subsequently required. This is where quality players like the Meridian show their quality!
@@steven2809 the encoding on a player requires always requires buffering. You can't not buffer as the audio is interleaved across several frames. That plus 8 to 14 demodulation, timecode synchronization etc... The player actually reads the same frames multiple times because it has to also ensure the output buffer doesn't get empty. Also it reads many frames to do error recovery for errors it can recover for and decide the subdata. All this is buffering! A cheap CD ROM will read the exact bits from an audio CD. Exact. Bits are bits. They get put in a buffer and then all that matters are: upsampling by cpu (if any, causing intermodulation distortion), the clock and various PLL's (adds various types of jitter), the DAC/filter (adds noise, non linearity, Harmonic distortion, phase issues, chaotic attractor noise in delta sigma, r2r or NOS Nyquist-Shannon reconstruction reflections), memory access delays (add jitter -- most players don't use dual ported ram to both read and write simultaneously), ground plane and EMF pollution in the circuit, circuit power supply stability and finally the output stage (all the usual analog distortions). But the sonic signature is source independent. It doesn't matter if the 1's and 0's come from originally (cd ROM, usb stick). Once in the buffer the bits are all created equal. It's the treacherous path from the buffer to your ears that matters much more 🧐🤪
@@supercompooper I didn't say buffering was not required...but not all 'buffers' are equal. My Meridian player I had many years ago used a DVD rom for fast multiple re-reading and held a 2 second buffer before passing to the DAC stage. One reason the sound quality was so highly regarded. Also when the Reed Solomon code fails it uses interpolation....so bits are not always the right bits!
Nice player, glad you got it working again. I had the successor here for a while, the 507 and that was a nice player… but I also have a Linn Ikemi, Naim CD5x and a Denon DVD A1-xv, all fantastic but different… the Linn and Naim machines are in all Linn and all Naim systems so they’re keepers… The Denon was ultimately better than the Meridian (don’t be fooled by the DVD bit, it’s a proper high end battleship player)… I’d have kept the Meridian too but it wasn’t getting used much and someone wanted it.
You bet it would make a difference good HiFi companies who take the time to research and build a product will walk all over a badge device. While the laser tech is standard the rest is not it will be tuned to their high standard some other companies will just take the insides of a cd player and put it into their case and call it a day Meridian is not one of them companies. Great video
I believe the Pioneer CD Player at 1000 Dollars , I believe it was the PDL 1000 and it had Skipping issues and Laser problems also minimal if any oversampling
Cool love Meridian players and had a few. Worth looking at the lampizator diy site, whilst the dac counts they're all good, the power supply and analogue output have a bigger effect imho. Have a look at snipping the output filter caps, newclassd regulators, changing op amps and psu and coupling capacitors. You can get a phillips cd753 very inexpensively change £50 of bits and have a stunning cdp.
Hi there. Fun video. Always wanted one of those oh so sexy B&O cd players with the sliding glass doors myself but man are they still expensive and it’s impossible to find out what kinda dac they have. Anyone know?
the meridian 506 have slightly better low-bass response and much natural treble sound imo, and also i believe you will not get any fatigue feel even after hearing it for hours
We bought a new merdian cd player and an electrocompaniet in 2006 2007. Can not get either repaired😢 Can not get new lazer for the player,and can not get a new mother board for e.c. I would not recomend paying out thousands of $ if no spare parts are available.
thereá a huge diference in sound in a good cd plçayer and a cheap cd player but many supposed to have good cd players are not that good only expensive , in mid 90´s i spend a lot of money on a CEC cd player belt driven and had bought some years earlier a Pioneer PD-S801 ,it had a huge diference compared to several cd players , but when trying several cd players said to be good almost none of them had better sound than a Pioneer PD-S801(a good separation of tracks in each chanel) , only when CEC released it´s belt driven cd player i notice a improvement in sound quality and the CEC which is a known brand ,really made a good sounding CD player ,those Rega or Meridian or several others were not that good sounding, but one can´t expect to have a cheap amplifier with a cheap pair of speakers (normally not good for the amplifier bought) one wouldn´t notice any diference from a 3.000€ cd player to a 500€ CD player , also when in 93 i started to buy more cds for the fact that in my country all stores closed in the capital city , Lisbon and when opening only cds for sale , but in a weekend a big open air market was selling vinil from all labels , alternative ones included by almost 50 cents ,i had a old mercedes at the time and filled it twice with records ,some that i already had but the covers were getting old ,at the third time i had to bring my friends back home so i only filled the trunk which was huge in this mercedes 280 S from 1969 , after this i started to buy only cds ,but with my new amplifier the cds were the less good sounding ,all other sources were sounding great but the cd was sounding very bad, the reason i bought the CEC ,i was using a power and pre from Sony ES with some Mission Argonaut mkII 200watts at 4 ohms each and now i have a cd player that plays cds perfect if they have a good sound ,normally old LP´s converted to cd mainly the ones that used guitars were sounding horrible, some of this audiophile cd players are good but most of them are not , as all other brands do ,so i also can add that some expensive cd players, today they look really bad while others like pioneer or technics or yamaha or denon still look good not missing bits and not looking like they went to a war, they just play and look perfect. The other day i looked for the CEC site and notice that they still sale my cd player today but i felt like dizzy in the head , the price was 35.000€ ,i didn´t pay not even half
"Belt driven CD players" are a good example where "audiophiles" migrate their experience/knowledge from the "analog world" (here turntables) to the "digital world" even it makes no sense at all.... For turntables a belt drive may make sense to reduce the impact of motor vibrations to the turntable itself which would impact the pickup and therefore the quality of playback. But every CD player has a servo mechanism which keeps the laser pickup on the track so minor vibrations do not impact the data readen. CD drives for PCs are reading CDs typically 16 or 32 times faster than an audio CD player and none of them uses a belt drive as it does not make sense.
@@elkeospert9188 it´s even worse on cd players the short pass of the laser makes the engine work almost on top of the reading system , some literally do ,this belt driven cd player was considered the best in the world from all important hi-fi publications at the time ,it´s still for sale today and it costs 35.000€ .i paid not even half of that ,the brand is well known for it´s turntables made for several brands making them in early 70´s for Pioneer and others which today are still above average in all their specifications ,this compared to a Pro-Ject turntable around 1.000€ that doesn´t comes near it being built in 72 , there are more based on this system like REGA´s ,Pioneer´s compact disc players in the 90´s
Fortunately, my ears are not as discriminating so I really can't tell the difference between CD players as transports. However, I can tell subtle differences between DACs, huge differences between speakers, as well as enough differences between amps especially between solid state (e.g. Class A/B, Class D) and SET Class A vacuum tubes....And no, I can't tell much difference between power cables, interconnects nor speaker cables to justify the premium.
I bought a used Sony SACD 5 disc player 8 years ago on ebay for $63. This is no BS... I listen to CDs for approx. 2 to 3 hours every night! The SACD player still works like a champ. Eventually, this player will die, but I am prepared. I bought another identical model SACD player for $80 as a backup. It's still in storage and ready to go into service when the time comes. Maybe I'm just lucky, but I can't see spending one thousand dollars, or more, for a high-end CD player.
I’ve heard so many speak of the high quality of uK hi while in the next sentence say how unreliable it is . A perfect example .if I pay a high amount for something I expect the faults to have been worked out before it’s sold to me , not for me to be the one to provide the research of how it should be made . I steered clear of most UK “ high end “ companies because of this always happened , whether it’s turntables , amps or CDs their reliability is atrocious and more like something I would expect from a Chinese company !
Very strange that a stock high end CD player from 1994 has a built in DAC that sounds as good or better than a high end CD player’s DAC of today. They simply didn’t have digital to audio conversion and filtering technology within the industries available chips back then that manufactures have available now a days .. Perhaps that company procured their DACs from another planet , or maybe Area 51 ? 😊🤷♂️
Hi Enjoyed the Video thanks. Still have my 506 somewhere in the loft. I thought it was a really good player on its day not quite as revealing as the 508 though. It would seem that modern dacs are better sounding in detail but still the player offers a good transport if the mecanism if functional and the laser isn't playing up. I will stick with with my MF Nuvista cd at the moment!
@Andrew Peterson - Back in the day, when I was servicing the typical consumer CD players and CD burners on the cheap, besides cleaning the lens with alcohol, a good 'quick fix' for most read errors, (dust and tobacco tar was the usual culprits) but if a clean didn't work, I'd then try adjusting the laser's focus gain, (until it became automated), which usually eliminated read errors entirely. The adjustment a minor 'tweak' accommodated for age related 'droop' in a fatigued lens suspension. Tricks that certainly earned me a coin or two for five minutes of 'hard' graft... Thanks for sharing. 👍
Yeah...and that little "trick" burned a lot of lasers....increasing the gain is NOT the way to do it...but hey if you can't buy a new laser, prolonging the lifespan of the player with as little as down to a couple of weeks before burnout is off course an alternativ😎
@@clausolsen856 Adjusting the focus gain potentiometer did not increase laser output, especially on older cd players that incorporated partial manual focus adjustment, but instead magnetically adjusts the apertures physical height in relation to the disc surface. The technique served me well and never had a single CD or laser disc unit returned in two decades.
I gotta be real audiophile cd players to me smoke vinyl I’ve got a bryston bcd1 plugged into w denafrips Pontus 2 I’m happy with that to take on any turntable
I'm skeptical... what I mainly heard was that the volume of the Meridian was much louder than the other two... (I also frankly doubt that true sound differences if there are, can be heard in a video...). But assuming there are (I'm not so categorical) please re-do your test by exactly aligning your output volumes first. What I do like about the Meridian is the robust construction, and very likely, given its age, the reliabilty (although you did have to tinker with it quite a bit to get it going again).
Ich habe einen Luxman DZ-03 Tube-CD-Player an Tube-Receiver Magnat MR 780. Den Meridian 506, bzw. die Marke Meridian kenne/kannte ich gar nicht! Wird wohl in Germany nicht vertrieben?! Der CD-Player gefällt mir, vor allem optisch, sehr gut! Danke für's Zeigen!
My 1st thought was to wonder if you'd cleaned the disc. You were unable to define what step made things work better and you didn't do a final check with the Van Morrison problem song. No science, just a hodge podge with your impressions.
The only reason why a CD player would sound different is the DAC inside it. If you're using digital output to an external DAC there shouldn't be a difference. Everything else is just 1s and 0s.
hi I am Andy and i got into hifi very young ,my dad had a tv and radio .. shop ...my best was when i went to a proper hi end shop in london , i was earning 150 pound a week but i sold a car that was great for me ...i bought a naim cd5 with the matching amp , it was fantastic sound ,it was real ,voices were just amazing , i now listen with a pair of denon heos 7 mk 2 with spotify i have over 20,000 songs instant play for £10 per month simply the best sound , thank you
I have a 506 that i acquired from my father in law but unfortunately it doesn't read discs anymore. Any idea what could be done to bring it back to life?
What did you expect from the different CD players, another band playing? The data on the CDs are the same, a DAC is a DAC the difference, if there is any, is the op amps or discrete components used.
Nice video . Obviously if you have better downstream components ( amp / speakers ), differences in CD player performance are easier to highlight . I’ve owned various meridian cd players , streamers , Amps and DACs and DSP speakers over the years - G95, 808v6, 7200SE loudspeakers to name a few and the company had always been innovative. Sadly following the untimely passing away of Allen Boothroyd and Bob Stuart leaving the helm to focus on MQA , the company hasn’t been the same . The loyal customer base is being eroded away and now their focus is solely very expensive speakers and custom installations. I have sold all my meridian gear and have only retained the f80 all in one . If you liked the sound of the 506 try and get hold of the 508.24 which was significantly better
It's obvious you here a diference, you are testing the different dac's, hook them all to the same high quality dac and then test if there' still any difference in sound.
Bits are bits. If tge bits coming out are the same ones on the disc, everything is great. This generally happens in a $35 DVD burner found in most older PCs when using Exact Audio Copy to rip to your hard disk. At least according to the online database of disc checksums complied by EAC users, where lots of folks using a variety of home computers with a number of different brands and models of DVD burners are getting the very same checksums from ripping particular CDs with their equipment.😂
I’m not sure what qualities or virtues validate a component as ‘high end’. Maybe it’s a marketing ploy, an excuse to artificially inflate the price or whatever. I im no expert, but I wouldn’t class any of the CD players in that comparison as anywhere close to high end. I purchased my 1st CD player in 1985. It cost me £2200. It weighs 12.5kg. It looks and more importantly, sounds, today as good as it ever did. It’s never required any maintenance. I have upgraded to a CD transport and separate DAC which together cost around the same as that original CD player but, DAC design and technology has come a long way in the last 38 years. Even so, that old unit can still hold it’s own, which is why it’s still in my rack.
Cd's are not brickwalled if they were made before 1995. In 1995 the hard limiter was introduced. I have many cd's that are prior to 1995 and have all the peaks and valleys.
Why there are people still buying vintage elettronics? Would you buy a 20 years old smartphone? or even a 20 years old pc? ofcourse not, yet you buy a cd reader + dac from 1994. Technology moves on, they are objectively bad and costs many times the prize of state of the art dacs.
Of course you can hear the difference when you buy a golden-ear CD player. Your wallet is way thinner, which makes you late paying your electric bill, which leads to the electricity being shut off, and that changes the sound rather dramatically.
Yes all cd players are the same. They have to be as its all digital information. Reading a cd is a very simple thing even a $5 plastic cd drive can do it. And nobody uses cd players anymore anyway so who cares. Just stream your music and throw your cd players away
"Reading a cd is a very simple thing even a $5 plastic cd drive can do it." It would not say that reading the data from a CD is a very simple thing as there is a lot of HighTec involved (Laser, high accurate tracking, complex error detection and correction algorithms) but yes - it is now very cheap to produce such a thing. Even 15 years ago you could buy CD-ROMs drives for PC for about 25 USD (which could read CDs 16 x faster than Audio CD players) The only thing that could make a difference would be the DAC - but since 1-bit-oversampling DACs were invented it is not problem to build very high precision 16 bit DACs for less than 5 USD also "And nobody uses cd players anymore anyway so who cares. Just stream your music and throw your cd players away" Or rip you existing audio CDs (using a software which adds meta data like album name, song names etc) and store your music on a USB stick or an hard disk.
Searched for "cd players double-blind comparison"---nothing. If you want your viewership numbers to skyrocket, do a carefully designed, genuine double-blind comparison of the same cd players (being careful to, e.g., match levels precisely beforehand) and present a video with the genuine results, whether or not they match your expectations.
Fair enough. I'm not really sure what you mean. It's not meant to be scientific. It's what you could achieve in your own home. As for bias. I don't want a $156 cd player to out perform a $4500 one. But if it does then it does. But thx for the advice. Cheers
@@AndrewPeterson599 Forget genuine double- blind comparison, you need to increase viewership with more trolls. Wanna have some fun? Lets compare digital coax cables!!! Triple-deaf, genuine, tests.
Personally, I would rather hear the experiences of music fans using a product in a familiar environment over a period of hours or days than a rapid-switch test that only lasts a few minutes.
