Meridian 808, 808i, 800, 508, 602 Instructions Manual

Meridian Audio Limited Latham Road, Huntingdon PE29 6YE, United Kingdom • T [phone] F [phone] • www.meridian-audio.com

Meridian America Inc 8055 Troon Circle Suite C, Austell, Atlanta GA 30168-7849, USA • T [phone] F [phone]

There is nothing quite like sinking into your
favourite chair in your listening room, press­ing ‘play’ on the remote control, and listen­ing, as the air becomes fi lled with a faithful
rendering of your favourite recording.

This is true whatever the format, but the fact
is that there is still one medium that is today
as popular as ever: the Compact Disc.

A well-recorded, well-mastered Compact
Disc is capable of extraordinarily high quality
results. But to realise the full potential of this
medium, one that today we perhaps take for
granted, you need the highest level of repro­duction: a truly extraordinary high-fi delity
system, unmatched in sound quality.
A Meridian system.

Meridian: CD Innovator

Of all manufacturers, Meridian has the lon­gest history of high-performance CD players.
Meridian’s fi rst CD player, MCD, was intro­duced exactly 20 years ago. MCD sounded
radically better than anything else available,
and still stands comparison with many so­called audiophile designs of today.
In the intervening 20 years, Meridian has
relentlessly pursued the path of making bet­ter and better CD players, introducing more
than 24 models – each one better than the
one before. Every model has received critical
acclaim, and we have gathered more than

Highest quality CD player
ever offered by Meridian

808 Player-only version

808i Player/Preamplifi er
version includes built-in
stereo preamp functional­ity: six stereo analogue
inputs, three coax and two
optical digital inputs

Main and auxiliary S/PDIF
coaxial digital outputs for
connection to Meridian
DSP Loudspeakers or
digital preamps/controllers

Balanced and unbalanced
analogue outputs, fi xed or
variable for connection to
preamp or power amp

Special Limited Edition
with extended 5-year
warranty

808/808i

Signature Reference Compact Disc Player

Meridian is the acknowledged
leader in high-performance Com­pact Disc playback, and has held
that pre-eminent position since
the release of the world’s fi rst
audiophile CD player, the MCD, in

1984. Over the last two decades,
Meridian has introduced no less
than two dozen CD player mod­els, each one better than the last;
each one redefi ning the state of
the Compact Disc art.

This steady process of improving
CD performance has been recog­nized by more than 50 awards
and has made Meridian absolutely
synonymous with the very best in
Compact Disc.

Meridian’s 508 alone received
more than 20 awards, including a
Class ‘A’ rating from Stereophile,
who, when faced with the superb
performance of 800, had to add
the Class A+ rating!

Now, Meridian introduces the
808: a new member of the 800
Reference Series and one specifi ­cally developed to render the ulti­mate performance possible today
from the CD medium.

808/808i

The Meridian Compact Disc Heritage

50 awards for our CD players, including par­ticularly prestigious awards for our landmark
207 in Japan.

Over the years we have researched, pio­neered and ultimately mastered the art of
refi nement of every aspect of CD playback.
We showed how jitter was a major challenge
to audio quality – indeed, Meridian was the
fi rst company to isolate jitter, as far back as

1984. Our technologies include advanced
servo implementations, unique power supply
designs, signifi cant innovations in the digital
arena and, of course, peerless analogue sec­tions. Meridian also pioneered the idea that
special disc navigation could improve the
playback quality on diffi cult discs (such as
those with fi ngerprints, scratches or manu­facturing defects). Our players also benefi ted
from digital output capabilities.

Meridian was also the fi rst company to offer
a 2-box solution (utilising an outboard DAC),
and has developed special phase-locked
loops and FIFO buffers to produce the very
best result in such systems – including of
course our preferred system, a CD player
directly connected to a pair of Meridian DSP
loudspeakers. The quality of digitally-con­nected Meridian systems is further enhanced
by our music-industry-approved MHR inter­connection system.

Meridian has also offered its technologies
for the mastering of Compact Discs. Some
of the highest quality recordings were made
using our 607 A/D converter, while even
more have used the 618 Mastering Proces­sor to maximise the dynamic range on disc.
Top recording studios tend to use a Meridian
player for checking, and over the years a
Meridian CD player has become synonymous
with the best sound, and ‘a reference’. This is
a reputation we cherish, and one which we
aim to defend by making each player better
than the one before.

Of course, today there are new formats avail­able – with more on the way – promising
higher resolution. However, after 20 years,
the CD catalogue is overwhelmingly compre­hensive and strongly-supported. Today there
are believed to be tens of millions of CD titles
available, with thousands added to that total
every month. No matter what the success
of music on DVD or other formats, many
serious music lovers already own a cherished
collection of Compact Discs and will con­tinue to buy them to satisfy their particular
interests. The serious listener needs to enjoy
the very best sound from this huge musical
resource.

1984

1989

1993

2004

Meridian MCD and Pro-MCD

Meridian’s first CD player, the MCD, based
on a Philips chassis with completely custom
analogue circuitry, was the world’s first
audiophile CD Player. Its successor, the Pro­MCD shown here, included a separate cus­tom-designed power supply, DAC and oscil­lator, mounted underneath the transport.

1985

Meridian invents the CD Transport

The idea of separating the transport from
the rest of the player – to minimise jitter
and other distortion from the mechanism
– was developed to produce the world’s
first separate Transport/DAC product – the
critically-acclaimed 200/203 shown here.

Meridian 208 CD Player

The highly successful 200 Series included sev­eral CD players. Using different DACs as the
technology developed, the 208 was a land­mark in Meridian’s CD player development,
with up to 20-bit conversion capability and
preamplifier functionality.

508 – Compact Disc Classic

The 500 Series, launched in 1993, developed
into a full range of audio/video products,
including Meridian’s first DVD player,
the 596, in 1997. Meanwhile, from 1994
onwards, the 508 set the standard for CD
until the advent of the G08 in 2003.

Meridian 808 Reference Series

Originally a superb DVD player, the Meridian
800 has developed to become one of the
most highly-specified optical disc players in
the world, with full DVD-Audio/Video capa­bility. Now, from its impeccable pedigree
comes the 808 – the highest quality Compact
Disc player Meridian has ever built.

1991

Meridian 602 Transport
& 601 DSP Preamplifier

The 600 Series was highly regarded by
reviewers and owners alike, especially the
602 transport and its companion 601 DSP
Preamplifier, 603 Digital Control Unit or
606 DAC.