Audio Video News

For those of you who have always wanted one of Meridian's highly regarded surround processors, but never thought you could afford it, your time has quite possibly come. The latest addition to Meridian's G Series line of products, the G61 offers much of the technology and pure performance features of Meridian's more expensive processors for just $5495.

Descended directly from technology developed for Meridian's flagship 861 surround processor, the G61 strips away the Room Correction, video switching and multi-zone capability of the $9k G68 to offer a powerful, flexible and physically compact package at an attractive price.

The G61's processing is built around a 48-bit DSP engine capable of performing no less than 500 million instructions per second. Ludicrous speed, indeed! The G61 meets THX Ultra2 specifications, decodes the latest DTS and Dolby surround formats, and also offers Trifield and Ambisonic surround modes.

For digital connectivity the G61 is equipped with two multichannel coaxial digital inputs, six stereo coaxial digital inputs, and five stereo toslink digital inputs. On the analog front there is a six-channel analog input to go along with five stereo analog inputs. All incoming analog signals are converted to the digital domain at 24-bit depth, at high sample rates. All digital inputs are re-clocked for low jitter and high performance. 7.1-channel analog outputs are provided as well as no fewer than ten digital outputs supporting a variety of surround configurations.

"Smart Source" stores separate instructions for each source, and then monitors incoming digital signals and loads the proper decoding software for each format so that stereo and surround sources are played back using the desired DSP mode. When the G61 is used with a Meridian digital source proprietary MHR Smartlink encrypted high-resolution DVD-A signals can be transmitted entirely in the digital domain.

The G61 can be configured from its front panel or using a Microsoft Windows-compatible software package that can be downloaded from Meridian's web site. The G61 will be available this month at $5495. www.meridian-audio.com