Meridian Audio 861V3.5 Stereo System User Manual


 
Meridian Audio Limited, Stonehill, Stukeley Meadows, Huntingdon, Cambs PE29 6EX
Tel +44 1480 445678 Fax +44 1480 445686
http://www.meridian-audio.com/
Technical Information
JMB v 1.0 – 8th Dec 2003
Similarly, if a DTS stream was presented on the input, the display shows:
“DVD DTS 3/2.1 48k”
But the user has the same choice of Presets as above.
If the processor is connected to an 800 or G98 (in a standard setup, where the player is decoding the
audio stream) then the stream display will show something like:
“DVD PCM Movie6 48k”
The user is presented with the same set of 6-channel Presets, even though the decoding has been
performed elsewhere.
If the decoder only detects two channels of audio then the range of Presets available will change to the
two-channel set, which includes many familiar modes like “Trifield” and “TV Logic”. Note that this also
applies for encoded two-channel streams, where the stream display would show, for example:
“DVD AC3 2/0.0 48k”
Digital inputs - Smart Link.
861v3 and 800v3 introduced the Smart Link protocol, whereby the player indicates to the processor how
many channels of audio are on the disc it is playing, and what the original format is. This allows the user
to set different Presets based on the type of disc in the player, e.g. “Trifield” for CD’s (2-channel music),
“PLII Movie” for Dolby Digital 2.0 (2-channel movie), “Discrete” for DVD-A (6-channel music) and “THX” for
Dolby Digital 5.1 (6-channel movie).
The processor can apply the same rules to formats it decodes itself, and use the same four default
Presets that Smart Link uses. This removes the need for an “enhanced” source to accept a multichannel
input, and presents a consistent range of options to the user.
So, all digital inputs have four default Preset settings, one each for:
Music2
Movie2
Music6
Movie6
Analogue inputs.
Analogue inputs have no way of distinguishing source material, so they default to assuming ‘Music’. The
default Preset for Multichannel analogue inputs is stored in the ‘Music6’ slot; 2-channel inputs use the
‘Music2’ slot.
Available presets.
Not all presets are available all the time, with the aim of improving the clarity of the user interface. This
section describes those special cases.
Ambisonics (UHJ & B format) and SuperStereo are only available if there are two or more surround
speakers.
‘PLIIx Music’, ‘PLIIx THX’ and ‘PLIIx Movie’ revert to PLII variants if there aren’t four surrounds.
Ambisonics (B format) is only available if the decoder says Music6. This is because Ambisonics would
normally only arrive from a multichannel analogue input or a (decoded) DVDA, it can’t be encoded with
lossy compression like AC3 or DTS, so would not be a sensible Preset to use if the decoder said Movie6.
Multichannel presets that need four surrounds (THX UltraII Cinema, PLIIxMus6, PLIIxMov6, THX
Surround EX) are not presented as options in the GUI or available from the front panel unless four
surrounds are defined.