Meridian 202 DAC problem

Guys I picked up this dac at a very tasty price with the intention of swapping out my arcam DAC.

It powers up fine, but with optical in does not lock onto a signal. If I put the Arcam back in the sound is fine, put the 202 back in and nothing, just a green power light.

The DAC came with a coaxial lead, this is not an option for me but indicates it was used with that and not the optical, is there a dip switch I have to change or whatever, just want to check all the bases before this thing goes back to the shop.

(Which would be a real shame)

 

gary,
are you still using that ungodly length of optical cable? if so it may be having trouble locking on to the digital signal. try it with a shorter length (if you have one) and see if it locks on properly.
cheers

julian

 

Hi Julian.

I wonder if it was more to do with the output range. I was outputting at 48000 Hz. The manual said it could detect up to this number, so I dropped it to 44100hz and restarted the mac and its fine.

Fecking hell, its a bit sharper than the Arcam as well, arcam off to ebay then lol (I always felt slightly unsettled with arcam in my system)

 

Its definatly the output that was the problem, the DAC dosn't like the 48000 output.

Now this dac does sound a lot better than the arcam, yet the arcam could deal with the bigger numbers, what net effect is this likely to have?

 

gary,
great that it's working. if it's meant to be able to accept a 48k signal then it should lock onto it however the difference between 44.1 and 48 on lossy compressed files will be negligable.
to be honest it sounds like you like the sound of the meridian a lot better than the arcam even at 44.1 so what does it matter.
good luck with e-baying the thing.
cheers


julian.

 

I thought I posted here yesterday, but must have had finger trouble. The 203 DAC is specified for sources 32kHz to 48kHz, however..... I have had several examples of these in the past few years and not all of them locked up with the 48kHz signal from my Arcam DAB tuner, my current one does!!! but some later models I had didn't!!! I suspect its a bit hit and miss.

Which model do you have Bitseam (serial nos start with a 1, also known as DAC5) or DeltaSigma (serial nos start with a 3, also known as the 263 or DAC7 and many people will pay more for these, however I feel that the DAC5 is more analogue sounding)

If you want a manual PM me with you email address and I'll send you a PDF across.

Hope that helps

Mr Perceptive

 

Hi Mr Perceptive. I have the manual (not very detailed is it) and its all working fine now.

And warming up nicely.

The Arcam is a DAC 3, might get 60 quid for it on ebay, still I got the Meridian at a very good price so every one wins.