MERIDIAN AUDIO 99 data

99 Series Technical Overview

The 99 series Quad electronics are conceived of a desire to build a complete system of
components capable of the finest standards of music reproduction according to the
Quad design philosophy of ‘…the closest approach to the original sound’.

Launched early in 2000, the 99 series products have endured through a process of
continued development, and a strong foundation of amplifiers and a pre-amplifier,
which are still amongst the finest components of their type.

System integration.

The 99 series of electronics use two proprietary systems to transmit and receive
system commands and balanced audio signals.

Quad Link

The Quad link system is used between
source components and the pre-amplifier.
As well as carrying the power for the FM
tuner, should one be attached to your
system, it also carries the balanced audio signal and system commands between these
components.

This provides the benefit for the user of an extremely simple user interface and the
knowledge that the audio signal is being transferred at the highest possible quality.
Although in the latest versions of the 99CD players, the power supply is now included
within the player, the Quad link system still provides the purest transmission of the
audio signal and the ability to control the entire system from a single remote control.

AmpBus

The Quad AmpBus system is used
between the pre and power
amplifiers. The AmpBus carries the
swithing information to
automatically power on and off your
power amplifier devices as well as
carrying the balanced audio signals
from Pre to power amplifiers.

The AmpBus system also facilitates the use of as many power amplifiers as desired to
drive the customers loudspeakers. Bi or even tri-amping is easily achieved by simply
daisy-chaining the amplifiers and using the selector switch on the rear of the amplifier
to select which channel is to be reproduced.

99 Pre-amplifier

The QUAD 99 pre-amplifier
offers the highest possible
performance combined with all
the facilities which the serious
audiophile needs. It can be
used with any of the QUAD 99 series amplifiers or any other suitable amplifier. It can
be operated either from the push buttons on the front panel or the QUAD 99 remote
control. Some of the pre-amplifier functions can only be accessed from the remote
control. The 99 pre-amplifier has inputs for three line level sources, one RIAA
equalised phono input and a tape loop in addition to those sources available on the
Quadlink communications bus. This bus allows connection to other QUAD 99 ‘bus’
sources.

The QUAD 99 pre-amplifier has tone controls and a straight through bypass circuit.
These can only be accessed from the remote control. The EQ section of the pre­amplifier has a low pass filter, a bass boost and cut and the QUAD ‘tilt’ control,
pioneered on the QUAD 44 and incorporated on every QUAD pre-amplifier since.

99 Tuner

Use the Quadlink cable to connect
the 99 FM Tuner to the rest of the
Quad 99 system.

There are two FM 75ohm co-axial
sockets on the rear panel for aerial or cable signals. It is a truism that the performance
of your aerial is the performance of your tuner. For best results, you should use a
professionally installed multi-element FM aerial mounted on the roof, or at least in the
loft space. If you are very close to a transmitter, you may be able to get acceptable
results from an indoor aerial, but reception could be noisy and distorted, particularly

in stereo. If you plug a normal aerial into the cable input, you will lose much of your
signal strength.

The cable input is so described because cable and satellite operators often offer FM
radio channels. Its input sensitivity is specially tailored to accept signal levels from
such service providers. Plugging a cable feed into the FM 99 aerial input may cause
input overload and consequent distortion.

External Signal Connections

There is a line level phono output available for direct connection to the input of a
DAT or tape recorder.

Operation

The front panel has 7 push buttons. The standby, cable, preset and mono
buttons each have an LED indicator.

99CDP-2

The Quad 99 CD-P is a
versatile CD player with
several advanced features.
The CD-P will play regular
music CDs, music and standard CD-Rs (open or closed) and CD-RWs. Automatic
upsampling increases the detail levels in your CD collection, and the ability to add
three digital and three optical sources enables you to get the very best from your other
digital media. An optical output is provided to connect the CD-P to other digital
equipment.

Digital Input and Output
Connections

The CD-P accepts three optical
and three digital inputs. Minidisc
and DAT players, or Digital Audio Broadcast tuners (DAB) will be significantly
improved by connecting their digital outputs to the CD-P. The CD-P can accept
incoming PCM digital signals to a maximum resolution of 24bit/96kHz.

The stereo output of DVD players can be enjoyed at higher levels of fidelity by
connecting the digital or optical output of the DVD player to the relevant input of the
CD-P. In the DVD player's menu, the digital output option should be set to 'PCM'.

Digital Input: This is via a single 75 ohm RCA phono lead connected between source
and the CD-P. Your dealer will be able to supply you with a suitable digital RCA
phono cable.

Optical Input: The optical inputs are blanked off when not in use. Remove the
blanking plug from the chosen input of the CD-P and the source component and
connect an optical TOSlink cable between them. Retain the plugs for future use.

CD Mechanism

The Quad CDP-2 mechanism was a major
engineering project. Whereas most
manufacturers use off-the-shelf transports,
we wanted a unit which was particularly
optimized to static CD players and
employed a ‘lazy servo’ mechanism.

In all off-the-shelf CD mechanisms – even
those used by high-end manufacturers, there are a number of compromises built into
the device which mean that they can be used for a number of applications. With a new
Quad mechanism, it could be safely assumed that the CD player would be sat on a
farily rigid structure and vibration, whilst possible would be limited.

This enabled us to develop a proprietary ‘lazy servo’ mechanism, which involves the
way the transport deals with disc data loss. Where most transports, upon loosing a
data stream, move the optic (laser) back a forward rapidly to recover the lost data –
ours just sits there and waits for the disc to come around. This has a significant benefit
in lowering the noise floor of the player. Some innovative timing techniques used,
also result in an industry leading jitter measurement of just 8 pS. These technical
innovations combined with its versatility of use (particularly the 6 digital inputs and
adjustable level output) make the CDP-2 one of the finest CD players on the market
today at any price.

Power Amplifiers

99 Stereo

The 99 Stereo power
amplifier is a conventional
transistor amplifier of the
very highest quality. It uses a dual complementary feedback circuit with exceptional
stability margins capable of exemplary performance and an output of over 80 watts
per channel into an 8 ohm load.

Overload recovery is instantaneous and the amplifier is fully protected against over­driving and misuse, without resorting to output line fuses or relays, which would
degrade the quality of the signal fed to the speakers.

909 Stereo,

The 909 is derived from the
multiple award-winning
Quad 405 current-dumping
amplifier developed by
Quad in the late 1970s.

The current-dumping
technology won Quad the
Queen’s Award for
Technological Achievement in 1978 and has been a cornerstone of Quad amplifiers
ever since. The modern 909 features greatly improved components and a massive
torroidal transformer capable of delivering 140W per channel into an 8 ohm load.

The basic principle of current dumping is that a very low powered pure class A
amplifier is used to produce pure, distortion free output. A much more powerful Class
B amplifier is used to produce the muscle. The differences between the input and
output of the high-powered amplifier are fed forward, cancelling out the distortion
introduced by the lower quality class B section, yet retaining all the power of the class
B amplifier and the quality of the Class A.