meridian dac 203

[The Vinyl Adventure]

Im not sure which part of the forum this needs to be posted in so sorry if its wrong

i have been given a dac 203, or at least i am going to be given dac 203 and i have 3 questions about it
1: are they any good?
2: whats it worth?
3: does anyone want to buy it?

he is also giving me a marantz cd63mkii if any one is interested?

i know this is technically a F/S post but the most important aspect is the "are they any good" bit as i currently dont know the condition of the items

[Clive]

I think the 203 came in 2 variants, Delta Sigma and Bitstream. The Bitstream version was sterile and lifeless, my multibit 206 from that era stomped all over it. I've not heard the Delta Sigma version.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

ah good news.... i think its the bitsream :doh:

[lovejoy]

I had a bistream 203 going back about 6 or 7 years. They were OK, but as Clive says, rather dull and lifeless. No bass to speak of either. I did rather well in selling it on Ebay mind you. I recall expecting about £50 and got more like £250. That gets you a decent DAC these days ;).

The CD63MKII was one of those players that was hyped to high heaven and I never really understood why, although I understand they can be tweaked and made to sound pretty decent.

[hifi_dave]

As above. The multi-bit DAC was the best and the Bitstream was competently trashed by all sorts of budget multi-bit players of the time.

Meridian also confused things by continually making changes to the products. The rep used to visit every couple of months and point to just about every Meridian item and say along the lines of ' that's finished, that one has the old chip, this has got new caps now, this one has a new mech' etc, etc, etc. Cut a long story short, they changed models so often that we found it impossible to keep up to date stock on the shelves......:steam:

[twelvebears]

Hi Hamish.

Generally agree with the guys here and I actually owned a 203 DAC myself several years back, but to be blunt, time and technology marches on and the 203 is may off the pace now.

Let's put it this way, I'd be very unhappy if you swapped my Beresford 7520 for a 203....

In fact, I've just picked up a minty fresh example of a 206 CD player (not just a transport) and having experimented, even that is comfortably out performed by my 7520, so it's just being used as a transport now.

That said, there are people on eBay who will still buy it, so I'd flog it if I were you.

[DSJR]

Agree with above and also had first hand experience of meridian's constant tweaking in the eighties and nineties. They didn't have a "house sound" either, one extreme being bright and almost harsh and the next "version" sounding soft and soggy by comparison. if they hit on a properly neutral and truthful sound, it was more by accident than design (it seemed at the time).

"Bitstream" was supposed to go in portables, where the low voltage requirement of the DAC would be quite at home, but the format was too soggy and "bloomy" in the bass for decent HiFi grade reproduction. two of the best machines I heard using this technology were the TEAC VRDS-10 (gorgeous mech in use) and the Marantz CD10, was sounded a bit too "organic" to be true..

I'd also agree with the CD63 KI-Sig - a VERY ragged and harsh sounding machine which worked well with other WTF "5 Star" products like the terminally dull AE109's, with their 5db drop in tweeter level over the midrange - were the speakers released to make this harshness tolerable, or were the CD players and amps designed to sound harsh and ringy to liven such speakers up? Whatever, it was dark times for us selling budget WTF influenced gear...

[jandl100]

Ah, great days, great days ..... back when I was young and daft ..... sigh ...... I'm just older now! :eyebrows:

A Meridian 203 Bitstream was my first ever offboard DAC. Used to add on to my first ever CD player back around the late 1980s-ish? As my CDP was a Marantz CD65/II it was a significant improvement!

But, yes, these days they sound washy and indistinct and cloudy. A StanDAC would barely notice it, as it zipped past so fast in terms of sound quality.

But there are always Meridian Fanboys on eBay with more money than sense - that's the way to go, I reckon. :)

[The Vinyl Adventure]

2 jobs i have to do this morning are put meridian on ebay and order caiman. so yeah i think we are all singing of the same sheet on this one! :)

[The Vinyl Adventure]

its now on ebay .. check out the "dreamy" picture i have take of it.. well, it might help it sell....

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250478058262