The goal was to create a cutting edge, pure digital system with a perfect balance of room design and equipment.

Every component in the ENTIRE system is fed clean, balanced power from a 240 volt 5000 Watt headroom Equitech with digital filters and dedicated circuits.

The room is accoustically treated with LBI boyd cinema panels in ultrasuede; absorbtive (Home Theatre & Meridian suggestion), with a diffuse back wall. The room sounds very good to begin with. Then the digital theatre was installed and optimised. Once it sounded the best it could, with optimum speaker placement conducted over 5 months, then the entire system was eq'd with Meridian's room correction performed in the digital domain.

All sources are connected via DVI and Meridian High Resolution digital connections where possible and upsampled to 24 bit 96 khz, even with 5.1 sources and benefit from EQ. No analog connections.

The Marantz VP12 S3 DLP projector is considered to be the reference single chip DLP. It is the latest with the HD2+ chip. It was painstakingly callibrated by Glen Zink over a 3 day period using Colorfacts and other measurement devices. Contrast ratio is around 3400:1 with amazing blacks and the most accurate color reproduction I have seen; CRT's included. Screen is Studiotek 130 for accurate white balance to preserve color accuracy. All sources fed via DVI where possible or component at a bare minimum. No s-video or composite.

System overview:

Accousticall treated room.

Clean custom and Van den Hul cables.

All electronics on dedicated, balanced, filtered supply.

All sources benefit from Meridian room correction.

All sources upsampled by Meridian to 24 bit 96 khz.

All sources carried via MHR throughout digital system.

HD satellite is 720P native via DVI and 5.1 upsampled to 24/96khz via MHR and eq'd in the digital domain.

DVD is 720P out via DVI and 5.1 upsampled to 24/96khz via MHR and eq'd in the digital domain.

Total number of 8" woofers in Meridian digital Theatre array: 14.

Each and every driver in the Meridian system is powered by its own Class A monoblock amplifier fed by a dedicated 24/96 khz D/A converter.

The overall result is astonishing. The system is so clean, fast and transparent with devastating, tight bass. Sounds come from beyond the wall boundries from darkness. Ground floor noise is so low it is remarkable. The imaging is rock solid and palpable and the system is very musical.

No upgrades in sight except for the new Voom PVR box if it becomes available. For this room, there are no upgrades necessary. 800 series equipment is a negligable improvement if at all sonically and the SXRD Qualia has higher resolution but not as good a contrast ratio, so as it stands, I don't know if it would be an improvement. Speakers are more then enough and have been tamed for this size room, so they would be reference level in an even larger room.

So no upgrades forseeable for some time.