RCA output sockets are not colour-coded, and (black) L/R labels are barely visibleīoth machines have aged well too. Rear of MCD shows heatsink that forms part of the die-cast Philips chassis. Both players were at the forefront of CD technology at the time they were launched and the rest of the industry struggled to come up with anything that really got close in terms of sheer performance. In the end, though, all of this felt a bit like splitting hairs. In a system which already sounds a bit warm or laid-back it would be ideal, but in one that tends towards the bright and hard its revised sound would not be an advantage. It would be like saying that an apple tastes better than an orange: it all depends on what you like. So the Meridian MCD does sound different to a Philips CD101, but I think to call it a definitive improvement would be tough to justify. The MCD displayed what I perceived to be improved vocal clarity but at the same time I felt that some of the track's percussion sounds were at times a little bit over lit and splashy. Experimenting further, I found that 'Your Love Is King' was harder to place as to which player did the better job. In isolation, the performance still reached a high standard, but it was clear that the design of a CD player's filters is, like so much in hi-fi, a matter of balancing a set of competing compromises. The song 'Cherry Pie', for instance, sounded overly pronounced in the midband and by contrast with the CD101 took on a flat, bland quality as a result.
With the MCD, though, some of the set's tonal balance was lost. Luxurious, rich and dark, it can be one of hi-fi's greatest pleasures. Sade's album Diamond Life has always struck me as tailor-made for the way early Philips CD players sound, no doubt through careful mastering at the production stage. The Meridian approach was less of a success with smoother, richer-sounding material.
The later MCD Pro model carried the same concept a stage further, with the complete DAC circuit now relocated to a new PCB in the enlarged base of the machine Given the criticism of CD players doing the rounds at the time of the MCD's launch, mostly that they sounded too steely and hard, this can only be seen as a brave decision, although in practice there is much to recommend the approach. This has the psychological effect of dimming the bass a little, although detailed listening revealed it to be largely unchanged. The obvious difference is that the MCD has a brighter, more intensely lit top end. To detect the difference the Meridian revisions make I found it necessary to listen to the MCD back-to-back with a standard Philips CD101 – a reasonable test, and one I suspect many prospective buyers conducted at the time to discover if the £100 premium was money well spent.
It is an easy sound to listen to and enjoy, free from distracting grittiness and obvious technical defects. The pleasingly solid soundstage which is instantly engaging without the need for deep concentration is still there, as is the familiar sweetness of acoustic guitar, cymbals and the like. Heard in isolation the MCD sounds recognisably like a Philips design. Were the machine my own, this is one aspect that I would consider returning to standard spec. One can only speculate why this was done a standard CD101 does indeed sound smoother once fully warmed up but from experience this only takes about ten minutes. The effect on power consumption is a reduction of less than 10%, which is fairly marginal in reality. The only obvious effects of the standby switch are to disable the keys and to make the strip of green lights that show the available tracks glow slightly dimmer.