In article <5a11b76350bob@sick-of-spam.invalid>, Bob Latham
<bob@sick-of-spam.invalid> wrote:
> In article <tcbbie$1ho4l$1@dont-email.me>, Woody
> <harrogate3@ntlworld.com> wrote:

> > ISTR that Meridian (and Boothroyd-Stuart for that matter) used Philips
> > drives in their kit but wrote their own software for them?

> If I recall correctly Meridian did indeed use the basic mechanism of a
> Philips player and the same DAC. The differences were in the power
> supply, the analogue stages, board layout and even the case work. I've
> no idea what proportion of the differences came from where.

Hard to say. My experience was that the mechanical side of the changes in
use of the Philips mech were a bit if a PITA. But the tweaks they made to
the DAC, etc, seemed to give nice results. I've never tested by measurement
the original IIRC. Maybe I should sometime. That said, any results now
might be degraded by the age of the equipment so not represent it when new.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
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In article <5a11b83ee1bob@sick-of-spam.invalid>, Bob Latham
<bob@sick-of-spam.invalid> wrote:
> In article <5a1195bcecnoise@audiomisc.co.uk>, Jim Lesurf
> <noise@audiomisc.co.uk> wrote:

> > FWIW I've now settled on using Pioneer CD *recorders* to play CDs.
> > They play commercial CDs that seem 'difficult' in other players as
> > well as CDR/W discs quite reliably.

> I don't listen to CDs at all now, I prefer the streamer and my music
> stored as flac files, less clutter, less fuss and IMHO, sounds better.

> I do still have my Meridian 208 but it's upstairs in the office where it
> gets very, very rare use to rip CDs that are copy protected. I've ripped
> thousands of CDs and had 3 or 4 that were protected and the computer
> couldn't rip them. So I played them on the Meridian and recorded the
> digital spdif output with Audacity, jobs a good 'en.

I've never found any that failed due to copy protection if they played OK
in an actual player. Regardless of any deliberate copy protection or its
absence, though, some discs are harder to play and also show up various
error types if you use cdparanoia.

I still happily play CDs as well as rips from them. Depends on what is most
convenient. Never managed to keep up with ripping. Main use for rips is
with my DAP. Which - despite the handbook - works fine with 2 x 256GB SD
cards of music onboard. Good for when doing work of some kind. :-)

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
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Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

In article <tcbbqq$1hq9u$1@dont-email.me>, Woody
<harrogate3@ntlworld.com>
wrote:

> Again totally agree Jim, save that if you want to get some ambience the
> Hafler system always seemed to work for me. Two speakers at the back -
> not hi-fi so no bass and little treble - wired across the L and R amp
> +ve outputs.

In our original room used for hi-fi a pair of ESLs used to give a 'behind
you' effect when you played an antiphase item. In the room we use now you
get a distinct null with just a trace of that. Both work nicely for stereo.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
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Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

In article <5a1217b88anoise@audiomisc.co.uk>,
Jim Lesurf <noise@audiomisc.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <5a11b76350bob@sick-of-spam.invalid>, Bob Latham
> <bob@sick-of-spam.invalid> wrote:

> > If I recall correctly Meridian did indeed use the basic mechanism
> > of a Philips player and the same DAC. The differences were in the
> > power supply, the analogue stages, board layout and even the case
> > work. I've no idea what proportion of the differences came from
> > where.

> Hard to say. My experience was that the mechanical side of the
> changes in use of the Philips mech were a bit if a PITA. But the
> tweaks they made to the DAC, etc, seemed to give nice results. I've
> never tested by measurement the original IIRC. Maybe I should
> sometime. That said, any results now might be degraded by the age
> of the equipment so not represent it when new.

I didn't have any case/mechanism problems and have never, that I can
recall, had an undamaged CD the Meridian wouldn't play. My
experiences since (whilst ripping using very cheap PC drives) is that
the bits that made the difference was the electronics, PSU, DAC,
analogue stages. I very much doubt the substantial case or mechanism
had any baring on the Meridian's nice sound. A quality feel and the
smell of leather though was nice to have.

I did have an issue with DC offset at one point, took out a DC
coupled power-amp. Several volts of it on both the variable outputs
of the 208. Took it back to the shop along with my DVM and the shop
got Meridian to fix it. Software update, slightly surprisingly for
that period.

Bob.

In article <5a1234beb0bob@sick-of-spam.invalid>, Bob Latham
<bob@sick-of-spam.invalid> wrote:
> I didn't have any case/mechanism problems and have never, that I can
> recall, had an undamaged CD the Meridian wouldn't play.

My first Meridian CD Deck had a warped casting. They had clearly designed
the setup to put the CD close to 'pan' base under it. The idea being that
when spun this would cause a suction effect that helped reduce any wobbles
in the vertical, so make life easier for the focus-feedback loop.

The problem then initially was that some discs would not play *unless* I
added something to lift them slighly up the player. Either they would fail
to start reading because the actual level was too close for the range of
the focus loop actuator, or the CD scraped the 'well' and so refused to
spin up and run stady.

As a pro tem I tried 'fixing' this by adding three paper spots to the
underside of the most affected CDs. This worked, and I still have some
discs that have these near the spindle-hole.

However the warp gradually worsened. (Pesumably stress in the casting.) And
the problem got worse. So in the end I sent it back and they replaced the
drive with another. Which worked OK when I last tried it.

I kept the drive when I changed the DAC to the 500 series delta-sigma
model. Which I preferred to the 200 series delta-sigma. But had to pension
off when I also started playing > 48k material.

Later I got a couple of CD Audio recorders and have used those since also
for playing discs. Their DACs are OK, but they have spdif out so can feed
external dacs as well. Really nice recorders. They use the 'Legato Link'
DAC method which can add some HF 'frizz'. But I can't say this bothers me.

Sign of the times that since then I've been able to use something as budget
as a Scarlett 2i2 3rd Gen to capture the abalogue output fo examine the
Legato Link added HF. (Done with a RISC OS machine FWIW. :-] )

A QUAD player I have sounds OK, but struggles with some discs, and I had to
do the standard repair due to a plastic cogwheel being jammed by a poor
choice (by QUAD) of lubricant. They sent the spare for free. Sounds OK, but
too fussy about what it will play for me.

Jim

--
Please use the address on the audiomisc page if you wish to email me.
Electronics https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/intro/electron.htm
biog http://jcgl.orpheusweb.co.uk/history/ups_and_downs.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html

On 01/08/2022 18:59, Jeff Layman wrote:
> On 01/08/2022 18:16, Max Demian wrote:

>> People said that home quad systems would never catch on as no-one would
>> want all the extra speakers and trailing wires, but "home cinema" became
>> quite popular, with Dolby Surround (the home version of Dolby Stereo).
>>
>> Similarly people said that Laserdisc wouldn't catch on as it was a read
>> only medium; true, it didn't, but that didn't stop DVD (and Blu-ray)
>> becoming popular despite few people owning recorders.
>
> The first LaserDisc players were very expensive; according to the wiki,
> over $3000 in 1978.

I bought mine in 1994 for £330 - a basic model with no special effects.
The 12" discs were mostly £25 each for up to 2 hours play time.

It still works but I think the laser lens may need cleaning so it can
play all the discs.

Fortunately I have an oldish Sony 32" TV which has a SCART input /and/ a
teletext decoder for the subtitles. (I mostly have opera discs.)

--
Max Demian

Jim Lesurf wrote:

> In article <XQM2KgAsgu5iFwZC@bancom.co.uk>, tony sayer
> <tony@bancom.co.uk>
> wrote:
>
> > Them's the days took HFN and Wireless world too, learnt a lot from
> > those sources!..
>
> Me too! My initial education in electronics was from articles in the
> then-current HFN. I reget that it is now essentially a consumer mag
> and won't really include 'technical' articles any more. FWIW I have
> suggested more than once that they issue reprints of some of the
> classic technical and construction articles. But not interested.
>
> Alas, I fear they may be correct to assume that most modern readers
> would feel annoyed by seeing 'technical' articles they find they
> can't really understand. So in commercial terms, the attitude makes
> sense. But it leaves it to 'the net' or books. Alas, the net isn't
> always a good reference if you don't already have enough knowledge to
> sort wheat from chaff.
>
> And one of the big problems of the UK is the decades of lacking a
> decently supprted techincal education system. Both FE and
> apprenticeships have been discarded in the rush to 'banking' and
> other forms of monkey-motions.
>
> Jim
>
>
> Jim
>
>
> Jim

I miss WW. Got my first job (Radio and Space Research Station), second
(Hayden Labs (Nagra)) and forth (ITN) from ads in WW.

--