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Meridian 808 or NOT Meridian 808

For sometimes I've been eyeing on the Meridian 808 - very nice sound, expensive nevertheless. I just don't know if it's worth the money. There are too many CD players out there, making it difficult to really know which one is the cream of the crop. Does anybody find considerably better player for red book CDs than Meridian 808? Thanks.
svhoang
islandear
208 posts
 
The Ayre c5xe is a great platform. It is a dedicated 2 channel CD/SACD player that costs well under $7K. It's SACD performance is outstanding, as is its Redbook reproduction. Having said that, as a Redbook player it is not in the same league as the 808. But at half the retail...
bpwalsh
1,197 posts
 
Svhoang, service on AMR products sold in North America will be done here.
mount_rose_music's avatar
mount_rose_music
116 posts
 
I have had, in my home, Meridan, Ayre CD-5x, Wadia 861, Esoteric X-03, and the Meitner combo. For me, hands down, the Meitner won. The Meridian was a dealer demo, and fully borken in, they asked me to take it home and compare it to the Meitner stack. I found it to be more congested, and be much less accurate than the meitner, as well as more digital sounding. It reminded me of when I compare Linn to almost anything American, it had good pace, but not good soundstaging, not good definition against the meitner. It was better than the Ayre in almost every way IMHO, and the build quality is outstanding, there should be a dealer near you that has both.

Cheers,
C
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