Meridian G02Fully Balanced Preamp w/usedWe’re Talk of the Town, located in Allendale, New Jersey. We've been in business over twenty years and have many of the best brands on display including Meridian. This Meridian top-of-the-line ...1063.00

Meridian G02 Fully Balanced Preamp w/ Warranty & Low Reserve

Listing ID: LIS314JF Auction 
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tott 

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Ships fromAllendale, NJ, 07401
Ships toUnited States and Canada
Package dimensions28.0" × 22.0" × 10.0" (30.0 lbs.)
Shipping carrierunspecified
Shipping costSpecified after purchase
Original accessoriesRemote Control, Box, Manual
AverageResearch Pricing

We’re Talk of the Town, located in Allendale, New Jersey. We've been in business over twenty years and have many of the best brands on display including Meridian.

This Meridian top-of-the-line analog preamp, the G02, is a factory reconditioned item that we just received from Meridian. It’s in great shape, and it comes with the Meridian 2-year warranty.

It is in the optional and beautiful SILVER finish.

This model is no longer made, but Meridian has granted permission for us to sell it on Audiogon with the regular factory warranty, if sold in the US or Canada. Thanks, Meridian!

This is a very special preamp for several reasons.

--Firstly, the G02 was made in small numbers and was built to equal or exceed any preamp available at any price. It was very expensive, and fairly rare.
--This one is in Silver. It looks smashing with its glass front window and black glass top.

The G02 is the finest 2-channel preamp ever produced by Meridian. It actually belongs to the select group of half-a-dozen or so preamps that can claim to be the best ever made. I will explain why…

This is one of the few preamps to take 100% advantage of BALANCED or DIFFERENTIAL circuits. To fully understand this, you will need to fully understand how Balanced (differential) cables and circuits work.

FACT #1: If you have two sound waves (they can be either music OR noise waves) and they are the same in amplitude (level) frequency (pitch) and phase (identical start and stop times) and you ADD them together, you get one bigger wave of the same shape. (ex: 4.1 + 4.1 = 8.2).

FACT#2: If you have two sound waves (they can be either music OR noise waves) and they are the same in amplitude and frequency but one goes the OPPOSITE direction (one goes up while the other goes down…this is called anti-phase or out-of-phase) and you ADD or COMBINE them, they CANCEL. You get nothing (ex: 4.1 + -4.1 = ZERO).

Regular cables have one signal wire, with an outer SHIELD around it. This shield, which is grounded, acts like an electrical umbrella to keep noise out of the inner wire; otherwise noise from other electrical sources would get into the music and contaminate it.

The better the shield, the lower the noise. The problem is this; the ideal shield would be solid copper pipe about an eighth-inch in thickness of its walls, completely encasing the inner wire. Great idea, but it does not bend! That would make installations a little tough, wouldn’t it?

So cables use a BRAID of wire that flexes, as a shield, but has tiny holes in it (especially when bent). Because the shielding can be very, very good but NEVER PERFECT because of the holes, professional studios never use these “unbalanced” cables with RCA plugs on their ends. The fact that they can pull out of their jacks is even more reason for pros to never rely on them.

Pros use BALANCED cables with high-quality, sturdy, LOCKING XLR plugs at each end. These plugs have THREE connections at each end. One is the shield. One is the signal. The third wire performs the magic.

This third wire does not carry music. It carries ANTI-PHASE-MUSIC. The music signal is INVERTED before it enters the third pin.

So we have TWO music signals traveling down the wire, picking up noise along the way. One wire carries MUSIC PLUS THE NOISE COLLECTED ALONG ROUTE DOWN THE WIRE and the other carries ANTI-PHASE-MUSIC PLUS THE NOISE COLLECTED ALONG ROUTE DOWN THE WIRE. Since these two wires are adjacent to each other, the noise that enters each along the way is nearly identical.

When we get to the other end of the cable, the next component again INVERTS the signal coming down the third wire.

So the third wire now contains MUSIC that is back IN PHASE and NOISE that is now ANTI-PHASE. Now we add the signals from both signal-carrying wires.

MUSIC + MUSIC = MORE MUSIC.
NOISE + ANTI-PHASE-NOISE = ZERO.

The music signal is now twice as strong, and the noise is cancelled! We still have a shield to block noise, but any that does get in is cancelled anyway. This system gives us up to 40dB of noise pick-up protection along the length of the cable. That’s a lot! Dolby noise reduction in tape decks only gave us 10dB and it made a HUGE difference.

With balanced cables, you can run hundreds of feet without fear of noise.

So preamps and amps with balanced ins and outs enable you to use balanced cables, which virtually eliminate the chance of noise getting into the music while traveling between components. This is very desirable, since ANY noise will degrade the DETAIL of the sound. Remember: detail in music is the ability to ear little “somethings” in the music on a background of silence.

Any amount of noise in your system wipes out your ability to hear minute details in the music if those minute details are quieter than the noise floor of the system.

Lots of preamps out there have balanced ins and outs. This preamp takes it much further. All the circuitry in the preamp is balanced, so any noise generated by the preamp is up for cancellation, too!

I know of a LOT of preamps that claim to be fully balanced, but they are not. That’s because the VOLUME control is not balanced, so the music takes an “excursion” along its path out of balanced, through the volume control unbalanced, and then back to balanced. That’s like finding out your “direct” flight from JFK to LAX makes a stop in Cleveland!

To eliminate the problem, this preamp contains TWO VOLUME CONTROLS PER CHANNEL. One carries music, the other carries the anti-music.

All four work in unison and have MINUTE volume steps that are WAY too small to hear any stepping. They are controlled by a microprocessor which never “wears” like a conventional volume control.

Balance is always perfect from channel-to-channel, and they are controlled by a beautiful-feeling knob on the front panel that actually just send pulses to a chip that then commands the volume to be changed by analog voltage dividers.

The volume control knob is digitally-controlled, but the signal volume changing is actually 100% analog! Better yet, the volume controlling parts are placed near the rear panel so the music never needs to come up front through wires. In fact, all input and output switching and amplification is done right near the rear panel. Signal paths are super-short.

So what about UNBALANCED sources? In this preamp, they are instantly converted to Balanced signals as soon as they enter the preamp, so noise cancellation can begin immediately. Cool!

This preamp has lots of Balanced AND Unbalanced inputs. It has both Balanced and Unbalanced outs. All signal handling is always in the balanced mode.

This is a line-level preamp. Meridian had moving magnet and moving coil phono OPTIONS available, but this has neither. If you want to use it with a turntable, you will need an outboard phono preamp. These are readily available.

Touch the volume control and you see what I mean by a great “feel”. Press it IN for MUTE (very neat trick). You can even set the input sensitivity for each source so the volume stays constant when changing inputs.

This is truly one of the best preamps ever made. It sold for $4000, which was a great value for a full-featured remote-control fully balanced design. Every competitor I can think of charges much more.

Its DUAL MONO design reveals all the depth in music (a Meridian sonic trademark), while its incredibly overbuilt power supply gives the sensation of bass response that goes lower than low.

This G02 comes with the power cord, manual, and that super-duper Meridian back-lit learning remote (it can control most other components using its built-in codes, and it learns codes).

Similar remote controls to the one included with this player sell for several hundred dollars themselves. This remote is now an additional-cost option on most Meridian models, but is included here.

We have the box and all packing for safe shipping to anywhere in the US or Canada.

Things to know…
This item is covered by Meridian’s 2-year parts and labor warranty.

There are NO refunds or exchanges on this sale.

VISUAL CONDITION: Almost perfect. There are a couple of TINY scratches, about 1/8 of an inch long on the top surface, but they are FAR to slight for my camera to pick up. This unit is one step away from mint. The remote control is mint, and has never been used, from the looks of it.

PRICING: We are setting the RESERVE at only $898.00

Things to know…
This item is a final sale, with no refunds, or exchanges.
It gets the Meridian 2-year warranty.
We accept PAYPAL or all major credit cards for sales in the US.
Sales to Canada require Paypal.

We CANNOT SHIP THIS UNIT ANYWHERE OTHER THAN THE US OR CANADA.

Since we have corporate offices in BOTH states, items sold to / shipped to within New Jersey OR New York State, or picked up at the store, will be charged sales tax.

The above words are the property of KZ Consulting and are NOT to be copied.

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