Introduction There are few companies that are as synonymous with excellence in digital design as Meridian Audio, and perhaps no other company has etched its corporate fingerprint into the future of high-performance digital music and movies more deeply than Meridian. Powered by the vision of company founder and technical leader Bob Stuart, Meridian has pioneered MLP (Meridian Lossless Packing), the universally accepted technology used for DVD-Audio highest-performance audio playback. Even before the advent of MLP technology, Meridian has been creating innovative products, including digital speakers and modular components that actually live up to the company’s promises of future upgrades. The Meridian 598 is a single-chassis player that will read many different discs, including both DVD-Audio and DVD-Video discs, plus CDs that are dedicated to DTS surround sound music, standard 16-bit CDs and more. The 598 is Meridian’s answer to consumer demand for a more affordable version of their critically acclaimed reference transport player, the Meridian 800. The ...

Introduction Many music enthusiasts have placed their digital playback purchase plans on hold indefinitely, awaiting the end of the seemingly never-ending digital format wars that have plagued this industry for far too long. Nobody wants to lay down large green for a digital playback system that becomes outdated before the new smell has worn off. While all this is being played out by the mainstream Asian electronics conglomerates, companies like Madrigal continue to produce CD players at the highest conceivable level. What will be the next digital format is anyone’s guess, yet one constant remains – the desire to milk absolutely everything you can from your existing compact disc collection. Let’s face it, regardless of what the future holds, you will be listening to the bulk of your existing disc collection for eternity. CD playback technology continues to advance, making the best of yesteryear sound lethargic and dull by comparison. An example of an advanced design ...

Introduction The NAD C521i is the latest version of NAD’s CD player. It attempts to offer very high audio performance at an affordable price – a goal in which it succeeds, largely via a combination of offshore manufacturing (the unit is made in the People’s Republic of China to NAD specs) and careful product design, focusing on “must-have” features and limiting the implementation of bells and whistles you tend to use only once or twice in the lifetime of a player. The C521i features Burr-Brown 20-bit delta-sigma converters for maximum audio quality. CDs are only 16-bit, but over-specifying the converters is a good decision. Even now, to get true 16-bit capability, you need to aim a little high. Also on the technical side, the unit features separate analog and digital power supply regulation. The actual converter chips inside a piece of digital equipment are one of the least important bits as far as sound is ...

Introduction I doubt Sony could have imagined the impact the invention of the Compact Disc would have on their company and project partner Philips. For nearly 20 years, the CD has been the absolute king of prerecorded music in the marketplace, having decisively beaten the LP and the cassette tape, then fending off new format threats from DAT, DCC and even Sony’s own mini-Disc. We have loved and collected the CD for an entire generation, but the times, they are a-changing. The advent and popular acceptance of MP3 as a music format now allows a music enthusiast to arrange and share (or potentially steal) music in ways not even remotely dreamed of a mere five years ago. This reality, coupled with a never-before-seen creative recession on the part of new artists and their record labels (try stomaching ‘N Sync, O Town, Justin Timberlake, et al as examples) hasn’t helped the historically "recession proof" record business ...

Introduction I doubt Sony could have imagined the impact the invention of the Compact Disc would have on their company and project partner Philips. For nearly 20 years, the CD has been the absolute king of prerecorded music in the marketplace, having decisively beaten the LP and the cassette tape, then fending off new format threats from DAT, DCC and even Sony’s own mini-Disc. We have loved and collected the CD for an entire generation, but the times, they are a-changing. The advent and popular acceptance of MP3 as a music format now allows a music enthusiast to arrange and share (or potentially steal) music in ways not even remotely dreamed of a mere five years ago. This reality, coupled with a never-before-seen creative recession on the part of new artists and their record labels (try stomaching ‘N Sync, O Town, Justin Timberlake, et al as examples) hasn’t helped the historically "recession proof" record business ...