[b]Meridian G08 & G07 CD players[/b] As a follow on from my review of the MF Trivista 21 DAC - I managed to get some time this week to audition both the meridian G07 and G08 players at home in my system, many thanks to my very friendly local Meridian dealer. I had already tried the G07 some months ago and been very impressed, so was keen to hear the G08 as a comparison. Currently I am using a Sony SCD-XA3000ES SACD player, which I am finding to be an excellent CD player despite only costing £600 online, and it plays SACDs too. I had previously tried other CD players from Sugden and Cyrus but found the Sony 3000 clearly superior or as good. The Meridian G07 really impressed me but too expensive at £1600. So I bought the Sony.... but the sound of the Meridian G07 had left me wanting more, and having decided I might be willing to part with more money I decided to look at it and the G08 again. In the interim I had also tried a Musical Fidelity Trivista 21 DAC but found it to be an almost imperceptible improvement on the Sony. Not worth £1200 - very disappointing given the ecstatic reviews IMO. see the review I posted earlier. So, first up this time round, the G08 which I tried over an evening and afternoon.... Very good indeed. The Soundstage is very big. Imaging is very solid with the music seeming to sit a bit in front of the speakers. Overall very natural and organic, but detail is quite brightly lit with a possibility of stridency in some recordings, noticeably on some solo piano. However the long term effect is very enveloping and involving and gets me out of the seat air conducting on big orchestral music.... this is definitely good stuff. However, the brightness of some detail - over-detailing if you like is a bit of a worry. Whatever, its a noticeable and substantial difference to my Sony. But not a quantum leap. Switching back to the Sony.... not bad at all. With the Sony the music sits further back and there is less impression of height. The soundstage is smaller. There is also slightly less detail and some detail is lost in the overall mix of the music. In simple accoustic music there is very little difference to be heard at all. The clearest difference is again with big complex orchestral music where the Meridian keeps everything delineated and clear. There is also much greater frequency extension top and bottom. I also tried comparing SACD played on the Sony to normal CD layer on the Meridian.... this confirms what I was beginning to suspect - the SCD-XA3000 plays CDs better than SACDs. Too often SACDs sound undynamic and soft. On the Meridian G08 the CD layer gave as much detail and much more life and involvement than the SACD on the Sony. Having owned a SCD-1 in the past I know SACD can do much better than this.... so possibly now interested in second hand examples of that player. Anyway..... I then tried the G07 player for a couple of nights.... again very good and a clear improvement from the Sony. As you might expect it sits right in the middle in the scale of 'betterness' between the scd-xa3000es and the G08. The soundstage is bigger, big music is reproducd more naturally and with more details and spaciousness. But not quite as good as the G08. on the other hand it avoids the tendency to brighness with some recordings which the G08 displayed. So overall.... Mainly I am once again impressed with how well the SCD-XA3000es performs given its relative price. Both Meridian players offer clear improvements in the musical experience but I am not convinced that the improvement justifies the asking price. Choosing between the two Meridians would be difficult as the G08 does more in terms of soundstage and involvement but has that slight concern over stridency. I may well return to these players yet again, but in meantime will consider looking at the Sony's bigger brother the XA9000ES, especially if it offers improved SACD replay (and I know of one 2nd hand). I am also hoping to audition external DACs from Bel Canto, Audio Note and Electrocompaniet in the next few weeks.
