Meridian 500 Mkii Transport Advise

Hi all,
I'm after a bit of advise on a Meridian 500 MK2 Transport. Firstly are they any good? compared to a TEAC T1 for example.
Secondly Do they read CD-R/RW Media. and Lastly would this unit benifit from being re-clocked.
Many thanks in advance ,and if anyone tell me anything good or bad about the unit it would be of great help.

Cheers

 

Let the mice from the mouse-organ check it out.

 

got one, it sounds great.

it has balanced and regular inputs too.

 

Thanks Bottleneck,
Have you had yours modifed, and does it play CD-R ?
Thanks

 

Mine plays CD-Rs with regular files, but can't play MP3.

Mine is stock, havent felt the need to change it.

 

Very clean and rich presenation, a decent transport for sure.
If you wish to improve the first stage is....
A reclocking latch (digital output baord) and seperate psu (dual rail 5v if your feeling flush, one for the standard clock the for the DOB) will improve things by no small margin.
Nice unit. Wm

 

Apologies if I'm a bit late with the reply.

I've recently purchased one of these & have had issues reading copied CD's burn at high speed, onto data CD's (100 for a tenner jobs). It seems fine with anything burnt at lower speed on the more expensive audio CD's.

My only grievance with the transport it it seems particularly sensitive to scratched or dirty CDs. I've only got myself to blame for that though.

 

Thanks all for the help, I've had the 500MK2 running for a week now, and WM description is bang on, "rich" and I will add smooth. I am using a MF Gear XDACV3,X10V3,XPSU3.At present I can't get over how similar the sound is to a turntable,the timing and soundstage are great. However,the transport isn't as good as my Pioneer 575a at exacting everything off a CD,on the flip side the 575a timing and Soundstage isn't a good as the 500mk2,not a surprise really. So my next step,and thanks to WM for pointing in the right directon is to have a Trichord Digital Output Board Fitted, I'm not sure if I can afford to have 2 "Never Connected PSU" ,and at £175.00 per unit can you blame me! Thats £350.00 just for PSU. Anyway I'm sure the PSU supplied with the DOB will give a lift in performance on it's own. I will post my findings,once I have saved my pennies in a months time. Again Thanks to all,and if anyone knows who does a similar unit to trichords "Never Connected PSU" and is of course cheaper let me know!

 

Interesting comment about the comparison with the 575a.
Does that infer that Trichord modding a 575a is worth doing?

 

Is the 575a worth reclocking, it's all down to budget really. As it stands the 575a is a good transport to start,with pretty low jitter. I found fitting the clock 4 upgrade to be pretty good, however one of my pet hates with the 575a is that it has a noisy transport,which can we a pain,if you are into listening to music at quiet volume's. In retrospect I could have quite easiely lived without it being reclocked, I've now pushing my funds into getting my Merdian 500MK2 Modded instead.

 

Works very well with the 566 24bit DAC also if you ever get a chance to demo, i went from a 500 / DAC20 combo to 500 / 566 and really liked the difference

 

Out of interest, have you tried any copies or scratched CD's in there?

 

In Reference to scratched discs, I've have so far failed to hear the transport jump on any of my discs, although I do look after my discs, bascially they go straight back in the covers after use. I tend to burn all my disc's at x 1 and I also use a Yamaha CDR-W and burn my CD using the Audio Master Format which shortens the time on the disc, but burns longer pits,making it easier for any player to read,it also reduces jitter. Out of interest what were the make of CD-R discs that where giving you problems? Personally I stick to "Ritek" as they manafacture there CD-R for most of the Companys these days eg. Datawrite,Traxdata to name a few,I had many problems a few years ago with different types of Media, simply the dye by many Manfactures Sony,Fuji,Maxell wern't reflective enough, although they have seem to have sorted it now, anyway I stumbled across Traxdata, did some homework and tested mine and friends ablity for play back,so far so good,I will test a disc thats been burn a x 40 add get back to you.