Meridian’s Bob Stuart presided over a demonstration of Meridian’s model 350 in-walls speakers. The speakers can be configured as more traditional passive speakers connected to traditional power amps at speaker level, and they can also be configured as full digital active speakers using all digital connections and onboard amps.

Stuart spoke at length on how designing and voicing loudspeakers of any configuration requires real, acoustic music and instruments as a reference. And in a refreshing break from the action flicks that dominate so many CEDIA demos, Stuart played real music with acoustic instruments and naturally recorded vocals. The system was very effective at getting the sound out of the walls, not only creating a spacious and life size soundstage but also localizing and focusing vocalists and instruments convincingly in space. The tonality bent toward being a bit shrill, but under show conditions concessions must be made.

Of course, some video was on the menu too, with Meridian/Faroudja’s 1080p D-ILA system providing stunning images. A clip of Norah Jones on Jay Leno looked great, and a clip of The Terminal in 1080p had strikingly natural depth and detail and incredibly accurate, realistic colors.