Meridian M2s in the house

samedi 26 mars 2016

Meridian M2 - the one that got away.

I've spent much of the past decade hunting down well respected kit remembered from my youth as being unavailable as it simply cost too much. M2s were on the list and back in the day I could only catch the occasional glimpse at dealers where they sat alongside big Mission, Linn, Kef etc.

There was a brief flurry of enthusiasm in the uk mags but that quickly faded and the Linn/Naim active 6-pack triumphed to dominate the early active audio scene.

Well now I have a pair, 2 pairs in fact!

A badly scraped and battered but fully working pair arrived this afternoon. I just plugged them into my iPhone via a long minijack to RCA cable and off they went.
These things sound really, really good and better than I expected given I'd been playing ESL63s for the past few days.

Imaging is superb with incredible width and these things go seriously low - flattish to 38Hz I believe and they certainly thump the floor when the situation demands. Yet they don't sound thick or bloated, just very extended.
They project a little more than the ESLs as the response is a tad spotlit but not enough to add any objectionable coloration.
That big old Kef T52 sounds really clean and crisp and it reminds me of the classic Celestion HF1300.

I mentioned landing 2 pairs.
Pair 2 are yet to arrive but have toasted amplifiers and blown tweeters, but beautiful knotty walnut cabinets, So the plan is to service the working pair and transfer the guts including drivers into the pretty cabinets. Flog the rest for spare parts.

A quick word on positioning.
Several reviews back in the day commented on a dull top end and grumbly bottom.
It took about 60 seconds of listening to discover the reason why.
The original stands are very low, which puts the tweeter well below ear level and the port close the the floor. It's a big tweeter dome.......it's directional......
Later stands offered some tilt but they are still too low IMO.

Get them up on tall stands - 50-60cm so that instead of firing into your guts the tweeters are firing at your head. Now the extended top end is restored.
Get them up high and singing into the room!

I'm going to enjoy these