Update 27.02.12
Meridian's Sooloos Core Control App, first announced at CES 2012, is now available on the iTunes store.
It's designed to allow the user to drive a Sooloos digital media system from an iPad.
The app allows a range of innovative routes into your music, from a customisable cover browser to the Focus navigation tool (see below).
Published 12.01.12
Here at CES 2012, Meridian has more to shout about – well actually, it's Meridian, so perhaps it's talking slightly excitedly rather than actually shouting – beside its sleek M6 digital active speakers.
The company also has a decidedly high end preamplifier on the way complete with built-in player for its Sooloos music-streaming system, and a rather swish iPad app to control Sooloos, too.
The 818 Reference Audio Core preamp will hit the shops next month, at £7500, and combines a range of analogue and digital inputs with a that built-in ID41 Sooloos Card, turning it into a player able to connect directly to a Meridian Sooloos Digital Media System.
That means it can not only manage and play music stored on the system, but can also be controlled by Meridian's iOS control apps for Sooloos.
The 818 also uses triple FIFO – first in, first out – buffering, DSP upsampling and apodising filters to maximise the performance of all digital sources, and as well as its conventional analogue and digital inputs it has a USB input to allow it to be connected directly to a computer.
Meridian Speaker Link outputs are provided, allowing a simple hook-up to the company's digital speakers, such as the new M6.
The Meridian Sooloos Core Control App, set to be available as a free download from the iTunes app store, is designed to allow the user to drive a Sooloos system from an iPad.
It allows a range of innovative routes into your music, from a customisable cover browser to the Focus navigation tool, enabling the user to drill down to almost any aspect of the track information – as Meridian puts it, 'even forensic detail such as quality or when a track was last played'.
The Swim feature is an intelligent feature to select tracks and add them to your play queue: it 'helps you rediscover music you had forgotten and provides a truly inspiring experience'.
Other functions extend to a wide range of transport, play queuing, system and information options.
