Hardware Features

The American audio marque JBL has a storied history when it comes to cinema sound. Founder James Bullough Lansing, then with his Lansing Manufacturing Company, answered the call from studio MGM in the 1930s when it sought loudspeakers of better quality to do justice to its slate of new 'talkies'.

One of the tell-tale signs you're a 'home cinema hero' – according to my colleague Steve May – is that you 'still have a LaserDisc player, somewhere...' And, indeed, to AV geeks of a certain vintage, the mere word conjures up cherished memories of that unmistakable whooshing sound as the big and beautiful medium – think CD, enlarged to LP size – was brought up to speed within the sizeable slab of a player.

For historical reasons, Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire has an extraordinary number of audio manufacturers in close company to one another. One of the leading lights of this cluster is Meridian Audio. Founded in 1977, it has gone about the business of product development in a fashion that's paid little heed to the trends and traditions that might be doing the rounds elsewhere.