Flexible Thinking

DSP5200.2 is a full range floorstanding loudspeaker which adopts the same cabinet design and technology principles as the flagship DSP8000. The latest edition, our DSP5200.2, takes this technology to a new level with a series of technological innovations that deliver superior performance in many areas.

Built by hand in the UK, each Meridian DSP5200.2 Digital Active loudspeaker features the latest Digital Signal Processing (DSP) technology. This ingenious, yet elegant design means that the loudspeaker enclosure contains the entire system’s electronics including three custom drivers, amplifiers and advanced sound-shaping DSP computers in each cabinet.

The DSP 5200.2 can be used as a stand-alone pair or as part of a multi loudspeaker installation in applications such as a home cinema. From small sized rooms to more spacious environments, the DSP5200.2 fits in perfectly.

Crafted to fit small to medium sized rooms (20-30m2), the DSP5200.2 has a small footprint and modest height. Meridian’s proprietary Enhanced Bass Alignment technology (EBA) guarantees sound is time-aligned across the full frequency range, producing a coherence unattainable in a passive loudspeaker.

The cabinet of the DSP5200.2 is formed from low resonance, multi-layer, cold-grown, birch plywood and is available in standard piano black or white finish and an array of custom paint finishes which, in combination with Meridian’s Design and Specification Service, means you can design your space in your style.

Meridian’s latest DSP code ensures all audio signals, including MQA Core streams, are rendered at 88.2/96kHz regardless of the incoming sampling rate, maximising the potential of the loudspeaker’s DSP engine.

Key Features:

• Outstanding performance. Three powerful wide range 75W amplifiers deliver a maximum output level of 116dB at 1m.
• Advanced, high-efficiency composite dome tweeter.
• Listener controls including time-compensated balance, listening axis and Enhanced Bass alignment – enables considerable speaker placement flexibility.
• On-board DSP provides thermal and dynamic bass protection – enables high level use for prolonged periods of time.

DSP Loudspeakers
The traditional setup – amplifiers driving passive loudspeakers – is inefficient, limiting sound quality. Meridian loudspeakers contain a complete, matched audio system with efficient DSP crossovers, multiple DACs and driver-specific amplifiers, giving higher overall quality, less power use, and the performance of a traditional loudspeaker eight times the physical volume.

SpeakerLink
Traditional audio systems often require large, expensive cables to maintain their performance. Meridian's SpeakerLink uses an “Ethernet style” cable that delivers pristine digital sound and control down a single cable between Meridian components. The result is simple, unobtrusive, and cost-effective cables that are easy to install

FIFO Buffering
Each sample of a digital recording must remain evenly spaced in time. Unfortunately, timing can vary, especially when reading discs. This is “jitter”, degrading music's sense of space and diminishing realism. Meridian's multiple “First In, First Out” buffering system minimises jitter, ensuring perfect timing and improved clarity. You enjoy a clearer feeling of the instruments and their interrelationship.

Meridian Apodising Filter
Filters are critical in digital audio. Commonly they introduce distortion and harshness because of "pre-ringing". Early digital recordings suffer from harshness too, due to primitive filters. After painstaking research, Meridian developed a special filter that avoids pre-ringing, so it can be steeper, cleaning up the effects of early filters. The result: a better, cleaner sound from recordings old and new.

Enhanced Bass Alignment (EBA)
High or low, all sounds travel at the same speed, so all the sounds from a live musical event arrive at your ear at the same time, whatever frequencies they contain. Loudspeakers, however, have a problem when playing low frequency sounds at the same time as mid and high frequencies – the bass arrives late, and the deeper the sound, the later it arrives. This delayed bass causes music to lose its impact and reduces the sense of the recorded space – it is often described as “boomy”.

The goal is to have time-accurate loudspeakers, where all reproduced frequencies start and end at the same time. In a loudspeaker, this timing is affected by the crossover, driver, and enclosure type. To eliminate the delay between low, and mid and high frequencies, Meridian has designed a combination of digital filters and time delays for the mid and high frequencies. This solution enables the mid and high frequencies to “wait” for the low frequencies, delivering perfectly-timed music playback.

Mid and high frequencies are delayed to time-align them, while upper bass is delayed with a special type of patented filter. These features must be implemented entirely in the digital domain, making them impossible to achieve in any passive or analogue-active loudspeaker design.

Enhanced Bass Alignment provides accurate time-alignment of the drivers in the system, delivering exceptional imaging and a clear, transparent, more life like sound.

Meridian High Resolution (MHR)
MHR was the first approved encryption method for transferring high definition digital audio between components. Previously, it had to be in the analogue domain, reducing quality. MHR allows secure movement of high resolution digital audio within a Meridian system, without compromise, improving quality by reducing cyclic repetition.