News

Meridian CD Player Sales Rise (5/1/2004)

In a world where the CD is perceived as being in difficulty, Meridian is doing well

Meridian Audio Limited, leading manufacturer of optical disk audio/video players and digital home theater components (Booth #17220, Las Vegas Convention Center, South Hall 1 & 2), is resolutely bucking an industry trend. Hardly a day seems to go by without another comment from a record industry executive on the falling sales of Compact Disc, but at Meridian, one of the leaders in optical disk player technology, things seem to be a little different: CD player sales are up.

The past three years to September 2003 have seen Meridian's Compact Disc player sales double, and they're set to rise even more, as since then the new G Series G07 and G08 have been shipping - and they have proved exceptionally popular.

Meridian was the first company to produce a true audiophile CD player - the MCD - in 1983, the year that Compact Disc was introduced. Since then, the company's several generations of CD players have been continually praised for their sound and performance, with some garnering over two dozen industry awards.

Today, the entire range of Meridian optical disc players are regularly acclaimed in the press, and Meridian players have won over 50 major industry awards, with the 800 Reference CD/DVD-Audio/Video player being particularly praised. The 800 is an unusual CD player that features unique drive technology to extract every last bit of information from a Compact Disc, and processing that increases bit depth and sampling rate to perfectly match the latest DAC technology available. The result is so astounding that Stereophile magazine created a new Class A+ for the 800.

"Meridian Compact Disc players provide real, lasting value," said Meridian's co-founder and Chairman. "Growing sales for our CD players show that there is still a lot of life in the format." He went on, "People come to Meridian because they trust us to make the best. They want a proven track record and pedigree, and they want playability, with low error rates and an extremely accurate sound." He concluded, "Meridian can help you get the most out of your CD collection now and for years to come, delivering the very best performance."

The new G Series includes two CD players, the G07 and G08, which are already proving to be particularly popular. The G07 is a superb, cost-effective introduction to the G Series line. Its heritage lies in the 508, which won over 20 awards, including a Class 'A' rating from Stereophile. The G07 utilizes 192 kHz, 24-bit digital to analogue converters for the very highest analogue quality, while the internal circuitry includes a superb analog design to complement the high-spec DACs and delivering 2V rms with less than -95dB noise and distortion. The G07 maximizes audio quality by reducing jitter to extremely low levels, for a smooth open, well-defined sound and pinpoint stereo imaging. This is achieved by re-clocking the digital outputs and by a superb direct-coupled audiophile-quality output stage.

The G08 upsampling CD player is able to play virtually any Compact Disc, from conventional pressings to CD-R, CD-R/W and discs of MP3 files (64-256kbps). At the heart of the G08 are fully integrated electronics and a computer-style CD/DVD-ROM drive, providing ten times the error correction of a conventional CD player. Once the digital data stream has been recovered from the disc, powerful on-board digital signal processing (DSP) with a capability of an impressive 150 MIPS (million instructions per second) up-samples the digital information from the 44.1 kHz, 16-bit signal of conventional CD to 24 bits, and to a sample rate of 176.4 kHz for digital to analogue conversion to drive the analogue outputs, and 88.2 kHz for the digital outputs. Upsampling enables filtering to take place far beyond the range of human hearing, offering audible benefits right across the audio band, for ultimate transparency from a CD source.

www.meridian-audio.com