Meridian DSP5200 SE Active Speakers

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.

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.

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.

MQA

MQA is a technology that captures the full magic of an original studio performance. Using pioneering scientific research into how people hear, MQA delivers master quality audio in a file that’s small enough to stream or download – the days of sacrificing quality for convenience are over.

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.

MHR

A patented Meridian audio format that combines high bandwidth, security and low jitter. MHR gets the highest possible sound quality in playback systems that use Meridian and enables the encoded transmission of PCM, MQA and DSD.

Audio Inputs

• Meridian SpeakerLink (RJ45) & RCA phono digital inputs accepting 32kHz to 96kHz sampling rates at up to 24-bit, with MHR support

Audio Outputs

• Meridian SpeakerLink (RJ45) & RCA phono digital outputs delivering 32kHz to 96kHz sampling rates at up to 24-bit, with MHR support.

Performance

• Peak SPL: 116dB at 1m

• Noise less than 15dB SPL

• Frequency response in-room within 3dB: 35Hz to over 32kHz

Amplifiers

• 3 x 75W (225W)

• Overall distortion typically <0.02% at any frequency or level

DSP Features

• 2 x Freescale 56367 running at 150MHz

• FIFO memory buffer input for the lowest possible jitter from almost any source

• Crossover minimum-phase at 2.6kHz

• Bass protection

• Response correction for the whole loudspeaker

• Hybrid analogue/digital volume control

• Balance control with proportional delay compensation

Low-bass Driver

• 160mm polypropylene long-throw

Mid/Bass Driver

• 160mm polypropylene long-throw

Beryllium Dome Tweeter

• 25mm (1”) Meridian piston in short-horn, beryllium dome with silver voice-coil.

Dimensions

• Height 903mm [36in] (Without feet/spikes)

• Width 178mm [7in] tapering to 300mm [11.8in]

• Depth 220mm [8.7in] tapering to 360mm [14.2in]

• Footprint (W x D): 300mm [11.8in] x 360mm [14.2in]

Weight

• 35kg [77.1lbs]