SPECIAL EDITION DSP8000 DIGITAL ACTIVE LOUDSPEAKER
BREATHTAKING PERFORMANCE
The Special Edition series of Meridian loudspeakers represent the pinnacle of Meridian’s loudspeaker design and development programme and are the most advanced loudspeakers that Meridian has produced to date. The Meridian Special Edition 8000 is the largest and most powerful of this series.
Built by hand in the UK, the Meridian Special Edition DSP8000 is a Digital Active loudspeaker containing Digital Signal Processing (DSP) technology. This ingenious, yet elegant design means that the loudspeaker enclosure contains the entire system’s electronics including its amplification. In common with the other loudspeakers in the Special Edition series, a suite of innovative Meridian technologies are also provided.
Finished as standard in a piano lacquer black or white, the Special Edition Range is also available in any of the 270 Meridian Select colours. Quite simply, the Special Edition DSP Loudspeakers are the best sounding loudspeakers Meridian has ever created.
Meridian has been designing and creating state-of-the-art audio and video home entertainment systems for over 35 years. Meridian products not only sound unique; they look unique. Great industrial design is as much at the heart of the products as the electronics or the principles behind it. The design is not only there to look good: it also contributes significantly to the smoothness and sweetness of the sound.
-Outstanding performance. Five powerful wide range 150W amplifiers deliver a maximum output level of 120dB at 1m.
-Light weight, dual voice coil, Beryllium tweeter for refined high frequency performance (up to 32kHz).
-Clamp rings ensure that the bass and midrange drivers are isolated from the cabinet, giving the most controlled and detailed sound possible.
-New extended-bandwidth analogue electronics, optimised to deliver maximum performance from high-resolution recordings.
DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING
-As pioneers and leaders in the field of Digital Signal Processing (DSP) technology, Meridian is able to deliver your music authentically to recreate the passion and involvement of your musical moments. Power-efficient, active DSP crossovers are individually tailored to distribute music to each speaker, bringing your music to life.
DSP LOUDSPEAKERS
-The traditional setup – amplifiers driving passive loudspeakers – is inefficient, limiting sound quality. Meridian loudspeakers contain a complete, matched audio system with efficient DSP crossovers, multiple DACs and driver-specific amplifiers, giving higher overall quality, less power use, and the performance of a traditional loudspeaker eight times the physical volume.
SPEAKERLINK
-Traditional audio systems often require large, expensive cables to maintain their performance. Meridian's SpeakerLink uses an “Ethernet style” cable that delivers pristine digital sound and control down a single cable between Meridian components. The result is simple, unobtrusive, and cost-effective cables that are easy to install
MERIDIUM
-Loudspeaker enclosures often vibrate, colouring the sound, making it less lifelike. Our most advanced loudspeakers use a cabinet construction material unique to Meridian: Meridium features highest-grade laminated plywood layers bonded to an aluminium core, allowing the loudspeaker to reproduce music accurately without adding its own sound.
FIFO BUFFERING
-Each sample of a digital recording must remain evenly spaced in time. Unfortunately, timing can vary, especially when reading discs. This is “jitter”, degrading music's sense of space and diminishing realism. Meridian's multiple “First In, First Out” buffering system minimises jitter, ensuring perfect timing and improved clarity. You enjoy a clearer feeling of the instruments and their interrelationship.
MERIDIAN APODISING FILTER
-Filters are critical in digital audio. Commonly they introduce distortion and harshness because of "pre-ringing". Early digital recordings suffer from harshness too, due to primitive filters. After painstaking research, Meridian developed a special filter that avoids pre-ringing, so it can be steeper, cleaning up the effects of early filters. The result: a better, cleaner sound from recordings old and new.
ENHANCED BASS ALIGNMENT (EBA)
-High or low, all sounds travel at the same speed, so all the sounds from a live musical event arrive at your ear at the same time, whatever frequencies they contain. Loudspeakers, however, have a problem when playing low frequency sounds at the same time as mid and high frequencies – the bass arrives late, and the deeper the sound, the later it arrives. This delayed bass causes music to lose its impact and reduces the sense of the recorded space – it is often described as “boomy”.
-The goal is to have time-accurate loudspeakers, where all reproduced frequencies start and end at the same time. In a loudspeaker, this timing is affected by the crossover, driver, and enclosure type. To eliminate the delay between low, and mid and high frequencies, Meridian has designed a combination of digital filters and time delays for the mid and high frequencies. This solution enables the mid and high frequencies to “wait” for the low frequencies, delivering perfectly-timed music playback.
-Mid and high frequencies are delayed to time-align them, while upper bass is delayed with a special type of patented filter. These features must be implemented entirely in the digital domain, making them impossible to achieve in any passive or analogue-active loudspeaker design.
-Enhanced Bass Alignment provides accurate time-alignment of the drivers in the system, delivering exceptional imaging and a clear, transparent, more life like sound.
AUDIO INPUTS
-Meridian Speakerlink (RJ45) & S/PDIF digital input
AUDIO OUTPUTS
-1x RJ45 with balanced digital audio and control for 2nd loudspeaker. Carries infra-red pickup for system automation
PERFORMANCE
-Peak SPL: 120dB at 1m
-Noise less than 15dB spl.
-Overall distortion typically <0.02% at any frequency or level Frequency response In room within 3dB: 20Hz - over 32kHz
AMPLIFIERS
-5 x 150w (750w)
BASS DRIVERS
-200mm x 6
MID DRIVERS
-160mm x 1
BERYLLIUM DOME TWEETER
-1 x 25mm (1”) Meridian piston in short horn, beryllium dome with silver voice-coil.
DSP SPECIFICATION
-2 x Freescale 56367 running at 150MHz
-2 x 24-bit Multi-bit delta-sigma DACs with 128x oversampling Crossover minimum-phase at 2.6kHz
-Bass protection
-Response correction for the whole system user tone controls. Analogue/digital volume and phase control
DISPLAY
-Eight-character display with system lights, can be blanked
DIMENSIONS / WEIGHT
-HEIGHT: 1350mm [53.2in] (Without feet/spikes)
-WIDTH: 158mm [6.2in] tapering to 400mm [15.7in]
-DEPTH 210mm [8.3in] tapering to 528mm [20.8in]
-FOOTPRIMT (W x D): 400mm [15.7in] x 528mm [20.8in]
-WEIGHT: 105kg [231lbs]
POWER
-20VA standyby; 920VA max
