old school surround processors

johnbriant

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i use a meridian 207 cd player. 15 years old, still sounds pretty good. wondering if the same goes for surround processors.

dont have a huge amount of wonga but was wondering if i were to get a meridian 565 and possibly a 562v when i go to america for a good price would these sound better than say a new 400 quid japanese processor/amp.

i would be intending to upgrade the meridian to the latest processor version. my understanding is that this will do 7.1 dts decoding.

my concern is that the meridian will be 10years old ish and about the improvements which will have been made and filtered down to even relatively low end equipment since then.

anyone?
 
I use a Lexicon MC1 processor which isn't quite as old but it's certainly not current and it's fantastic. When you consider how cheap these processors can be picked up for it makes me wonder why people would buy the current models unless they've got mountains of spare cash knocking about! I'm not saying the older models are as good but when you look at the price difference it's hard to justify the extra cost of a new one.
 
i have a meridian 561. prior to that I owned a Yam A3090 and a Denon 3803. At the time, the 3803 was new and it replaced my Yam A3090. After a while, I found that movies had lost their slam. I still had the Yam, so I put it back into play. Dynamics, focus and enjoyment returned! So the 3803 was sold on.

Later, I demo'd the meridian 561 against the Yam. The difference was not quite so large, but enough for me to buy the meridian.

In answer to your question, new doesn't necessarily mean better! Trust your ears.
 
Absolutely agree. Quality is quality, and kit from the likes of Meridian, Lexicon and TAG will blow away anything from the Denon/Yamaha/Sony camp. I use an old Proceed and the sound is simply superb.
 
Yes these processors are capable of greta sounds and aren't far off the best available even now. They go for not great amounts of money, see the AVP that Peter Baker is selling in the classified. £5k new and people loved it, inc me. I have just bought one for myself. There are other good examples from Tag, Meridian Bryston, Lexicon, Linn, Theta etc etc Quality is always quality.
 
With 568s going for £800-1000 (with the exception of a 568.2 at a silly price, eh Henry?!) I would bypass the 561, when there was a £2k difference it made more sense, but when you may only save a couple of hundred quid I would go for the 568.
 

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