Product Highlight – Meridian M6

The first thing that strikes you when you see the Meridian M6 active speakers is their shape – looking not-unlike small felt-clad missiles. When you hear them however, their performance clearly makes them weapons of mass audio! How can a speakers of this size and shape sound sooo good? Well, our product highlight posts try to avoid the technobabble and focus on the heart of the matter – audio, or rather, music performance. Meridian has been manufacturing fully active systems since the 1970s and their expertise is clearly on show here. Combining specific materials, clever design, coupled with propriety digital signal processing, makes for a speaker system that excels at convincing you, you have bigger, more expensive speakers in your room.

So, what’s an active speaker system? Well, there are numerous explanations and some of the wording can be misused, but we will stick with Meridian’s naming of their product. A system of this type typically refers to the speaker drivers, electronics and amplification all built into the housing, eliminating the need for a stack of separate components. The crossover, typically found on the back of passive loudspeakers behind the speaker cable terminals, is eliminated in favour of a digital crossover. This design allows the DSP to work more effectively and eliminate things like comb filtering, time delay issues etc, resulting in a more coherent sound with less smearing between frequencies. What we are presented with in the M6 speakers is an incredibly wide soundstage that can be enjoyed in both the sweetspot or off-axis.

One of the key features of Meridian speakers is the minimalist approach to cabling. The speakers themselves just require power, which both speakers connecting to each other with inexpensive CAT5/6/7 cabling. To get your sources of audio playing through the M6 speakers, there are a few extremely compact solutions available, such as the Meridian 218. This tiny box allows connectivity from sources such as Turntable, CD/DVD, TV, PC etc. This box can be hidden from view, all controlled with a smartphone/tablet app. To connect the 218 to the speakers, simply connect it in-line between the two speakers with the aforementioned ethernet-style cabling.

The Meridian M6 is by no means the last word in audiophilia from the brand – their flagship model sells for $110,000, but there’s no denying how clean, detailed, engaging and just darn fun the M6 speakers are to listen to. You would be hard pressed to get a similarly-priced solution that offers the same level of performance, in a discrete package, with in-expensive cabling. And this system is room agnostic – it cares “less” about the room’s acoustics compared to conventional systems.
The Meridian M6 are on permanent demonstration in our showroom.