Meridian 588 vs CDX2
Posted by: sideshowbob on 06 July 2003
Following on from the recent Meridian/CDX2 thread, I thought some people may be interested in my experiences with these two players.
I've had a 588 for around 6 months and am extremely happy with it. I had a chance to briefly hear a CDX2 recently, and liked it, so managed to snaffle a home dem of one this weekend.
The aim originally was to try the CDX2 both with and without the XPS2, but the dealer doesn't have an XPS2 in stock at the moment, so that will have to wait another day. The CDX2 I have is a well run-in demo model and I can't say I've noticed any major changes in its sonic characteristics in the three days I've had it at home.
Rest of the system is non-Naim: EAR 834L preamp and ATC active 10 speakers. For nerdishness sake, I've also tried both players in front of the 42.5/110/Cura CA5 bedroom system, in order to see if anything was different using the CDX2's DIN outputs rather than single-ended outputs. The CDX2's character doesn't seem noticeably different in either context, to me at least.
I'm not one for A/B testing, much preferring to just play familiar music I like. IME I can tell pretty quickly whether I like a component or not, within a few minutes. When I bought the Meridian, for example, I tried it against another player and it was apparent immediately which made better music. The remainder of the audition was simply a confirmation of what I heard in the first 5 minutes. Having said that, I did do an A/B test last night to confirm what I'd been hearing in the 2 days before.
My conclusion is that you would have to have painfully golden ears to be able to tell the two players apart at all. Both play music without fatigue or digital glassiness. Whether you tune dem them or use more round earth criteria, both deliver. They're both very revealing, they're both exceptional with good recordings, but both also play lo-fi raucous material without smoothing it over (most of my listening is at the free end of modern jazz and improv, with a fair smattering of Captain Beefheart, noisy avant-punk and electronica, and the like). Neither of them seem to impose too much of their own character on the music. But, more than that, they sound virtually identical, to me at least, and I know from my own experience that I am usually able to pick out even fairly small differences between source components. To confirm this, I eventually gave in and committed the Hi-Fi Nerd sin of A/B testing, with the same CD in each player, switching from one input to another. I could hear barely a difference. The CDX2 may have a slightly more forward presentation, but it's so fractional I know I wouldn't be able to reliably identify which player was which in a blind test.
So, my conclusion is I would be deeply sceptical of anyone who claims there's a clear-cut choice either way on purely sonic grounds. Ergonomically the players are very different, and I like the CDX2's pull-out transport better than the Meridian's comparatively flimsy draw (I could do without the puck, however). The CDX2 loads CDs much faster than the Meridian as well, and has HDCD playback (which the Meridian lacks). These are all reasons for preferring it to the Meridian. Against that, however, the 588 has digital outputs (more useful to me at least than HDCD, since I don't know if I even own any HDCDs), more flexible fast-forward/rewind options, equally good build quality - albeit with glass and ceramic rather than aluminium - and retails for £500 less (£2100 to the CDX2's £2600). In addition, the CDX2 has choked on a couple of CD-Rs that the Meridian plays with no problem.
In short, they're both fine players, and I'd be happy with either of them. Even at £500 extra the CDX2 doesn't seem to me to be overpriced by the modern standards of high-end digital. I've heard plenty of much more expensive players that aren't anything like as engaging as either the 588 or the CDX2. If adding an XPS2 turns out to be a worthwhile improvement, that's a score for the CDX2 over the 588, which has no such upgrade path, but it does take us into the realm of £5K CDPs, which is not a realm to enter lightly IMO.
Flame away!
-- Ian
I've had a 588 for around 6 months and am extremely happy with it. I had a chance to briefly hear a CDX2 recently, and liked it, so managed to snaffle a home dem of one this weekend.
The aim originally was to try the CDX2 both with and without the XPS2, but the dealer doesn't have an XPS2 in stock at the moment, so that will have to wait another day. The CDX2 I have is a well run-in demo model and I can't say I've noticed any major changes in its sonic characteristics in the three days I've had it at home.
Rest of the system is non-Naim: EAR 834L preamp and ATC active 10 speakers. For nerdishness sake, I've also tried both players in front of the 42.5/110/Cura CA5 bedroom system, in order to see if anything was different using the CDX2's DIN outputs rather than single-ended outputs. The CDX2's character doesn't seem noticeably different in either context, to me at least.
I'm not one for A/B testing, much preferring to just play familiar music I like. IME I can tell pretty quickly whether I like a component or not, within a few minutes. When I bought the Meridian, for example, I tried it against another player and it was apparent immediately which made better music. The remainder of the audition was simply a confirmation of what I heard in the first 5 minutes. Having said that, I did do an A/B test last night to confirm what I'd been hearing in the 2 days before.
My conclusion is that you would have to have painfully golden ears to be able to tell the two players apart at all. Both play music without fatigue or digital glassiness. Whether you tune dem them or use more round earth criteria, both deliver. They're both very revealing, they're both exceptional with good recordings, but both also play lo-fi raucous material without smoothing it over (most of my listening is at the free end of modern jazz and improv, with a fair smattering of Captain Beefheart, noisy avant-punk and electronica, and the like). Neither of them seem to impose too much of their own character on the music. But, more than that, they sound virtually identical, to me at least, and I know from my own experience that I am usually able to pick out even fairly small differences between source components. To confirm this, I eventually gave in and committed the Hi-Fi Nerd sin of A/B testing, with the same CD in each player, switching from one input to another. I could hear barely a difference. The CDX2 may have a slightly more forward presentation, but it's so fractional I know I wouldn't be able to reliably identify which player was which in a blind test.
So, my conclusion is I would be deeply sceptical of anyone who claims there's a clear-cut choice either way on purely sonic grounds. Ergonomically the players are very different, and I like the CDX2's pull-out transport better than the Meridian's comparatively flimsy draw (I could do without the puck, however). The CDX2 loads CDs much faster than the Meridian as well, and has HDCD playback (which the Meridian lacks). These are all reasons for preferring it to the Meridian. Against that, however, the 588 has digital outputs (more useful to me at least than HDCD, since I don't know if I even own any HDCDs), more flexible fast-forward/rewind options, equally good build quality - albeit with glass and ceramic rather than aluminium - and retails for £500 less (£2100 to the CDX2's £2600). In addition, the CDX2 has choked on a couple of CD-Rs that the Meridian plays with no problem.
In short, they're both fine players, and I'd be happy with either of them. Even at £500 extra the CDX2 doesn't seem to me to be overpriced by the modern standards of high-end digital. I've heard plenty of much more expensive players that aren't anything like as engaging as either the 588 or the CDX2. If adding an XPS2 turns out to be a worthwhile improvement, that's a score for the CDX2 over the 588, which has no such upgrade path, but it does take us into the realm of £5K CDPs, which is not a realm to enter lightly IMO.
Flame away!
-- Ian