Meridian 506 CD player. $3200 in 1994
Re-published in conjunction with a review of the 506's replacement, the Meridian 507, this review first appeared in the February 1994 issue of AudioVideo (an earlier name for AudioEnz).
I remember the time I first came across Meridian. The long-deceased Hutt Hi-Fi store in Lower Hutt had just taken shipment of their first Meridian stock: a pair of speakers and a preamp.
The speakers were unusual, very narrow and with power amplifiers built into the cabinet! The preamp was very small and a dark chocolate brown colour, with two (or was it three?) switches and a volume knob. What a strange company I thought.
This feeling wasn’t helped by subsequent products. Their first CD players were raved about by some audiophiles, yet to me they sounded very similar to the Philips players they were based on, and lacking information compared to my fave-rave top Sonys.
Last year, when Lloyd Macomber reviewed the Meridian 206B, I came to appreciate the Meridian approach. Sure, that model, with its bolted box construction and simply weird ergonomics, still seemed a little strange. But there was a greater sense of human beings being involved in creating the music than with my player. I found the 206B both beguiling and intoxicating.
So to the 506 CD player, a member of Meridian’s new 500-Series of components. I get the feeling that this time Meridian have got almost everything right.
Take, as an example, the appearance. A midi-width component, the 506 ($3200) to me looks substantially better than the 200-Series components. Beautifully finished in dark grey, the top panel in reflective (see the front cover). It has sometimes been said that Meridian are courting the potential Bang & Olufsen buyer, while offering higher sound quality. With the 506 CD player, they look like succeeding.
The front panel offers the normal play, pause, next track etc, controls. To move forward or back within a track, you have to use the remote control… or would if one were supplied.
It seems astonishing to me that a $3200 CD player can come without a remote. One Meridian dealer tells me that it hasn’t bothered his 506 customers. But if you are bothered by it, a remote control that works a Philips, or a Philips-based CD player, will drive the 506. A call to Philips spare parts suggests that one could be yours for a little over $100.
On the rear are the normal RCA output sockets, plus coaxial and digital out.
Gone are the annoying ergonomics – the simply weird way the controls worked – of the 200-series. And although track changes are not as lightening quick as some Japanese players, I’m finding the 1.5 second delay just right for me – maybe I’m getting old!
But enough of this prattling on, I hear you cry. Tell us: what did the 506 sound like?
Many CD players have a touch of the ‘artificials’ about them. They create a synthetic quality to the music they’re trying to reproduce.
The 506 CD player doesn’t sound like that. It has what I described earlier as a ‘human quality’ to the reproduction of the music – as if there were real people behind the music instead of a machine. Let me give you an example.
One of my favourite albums is Joni Mitchell’s 1971 release, Blue. I have played this album through countless compact disc players and many systems. Sometimes, the hi-fi components make it sound as if it were background noise, something that can easily be ignored. When the hi-fi components are good, it can sound as if Joni was singing and playing directly to you and only for you.
That is how it sounded through the Meridian. The expressiveness of her voice, the way she phrased both her vocals and her gorgeous piano playing. She was singing to me, telling me of her thoughts.
And it happened again and again, with the wide varieties of music I listen to.
You want more? Well, okay. The 506 sounds super-smooth – there’s none of that annoying brightness (or more correctly, glare) that can afflict even some very expensive CD players. But this smoothness is not at the expense of detail retrieval or dynamics. This is no sweet and mushy player.
The only real sonic reservation is a minor one: the 506 hasn’t the last ounce of bass weight that seems to come from electronics with a hefty power supply.
I have nothing but praise for the Meridian 506. This is a player that will give long-term satisfaction, and reward the music lover.
Right of reply
I remember the first time I net Michael O'Jones, 'twas in the June of 1986. He was not deceased but he was not moving all that quick. He was a little unusual and a lot narrower than he is now. He proceeded to bore Peter (Plinius) Thomson and myself with his plans to publish a NZ audio magazine - by Zounds he did.
Although changes are not as lightening quick as Enid Blyton's children's books, the old rag has come a long way over the past eight years. Perhaps in the not too distant future we may even see Jonsey purchase another CD or two.
http://www.audioenz.co.nz/2003/archive_meridian_506.shtml
