poco a poco
I'm Jim
Both my M1's and later M10's came from Howard Popeck at Subjective Audio. I first heard the M1's around 1976 I think at a hi-fi show in a hotel in Blackheath and despite a not ideal room I was blown away by how much better they were than any amp/speaker combination I had heard and so began my love of active speakers. Subjective were the main (only?) dealer in London and Howard worked then from his home in Palmers Green (as Keith @Purité Audio does now) and the M1's sounded wonderful there and I bought a pair. In fact I thought most things sounded better at his house than at the shop he had later, with dedicated listening rooms, at Mornington Crecent.I confess I do believe soundstage is important but still consider the M1 superior to the M10 and M100, both of which were a bit more 'hifi' to me, I never really got on with either, I always considered the M1 more engaging.
I ended up with an Audio Research pre-amp driving my second pair of M1s (rosewood originals, walnut second time around), fronted by an Oracle Delphi with FR 64fx and a Koetsu Black. That was a glorious system.
I think I'm correct in saying that in 1980 I sold more M1s than any UK dealer other than Howard Popeck, which considering he was in London and I was in Aberdeen was reasonably impressive — Steve Hopkins thought we were using them to build oil rigs...
In 1981 After a number of auditions at Howard's shop and home loans I decided to trade in the M1's for the M10's. As I said above it was a close run thing and I can see why you might have preferred the M1's. When I trialed them there were a few things I thought could be improved and after some discussions with Howard and Colin Howard, production manager at Meridian, Meridian customised my pair prior to delivery. The had special (much better) mounting plates for the T33 tweeters made by John Michell and the DIN / RCA inputs were replaced by XLR's, again on a better mounting plate, so that I could run XLR to XLR from pre amp. I also had a pair of low level spiked stands for them that were made by one of Howard's customers.
I would not describe my pair of M10's as more 'Hi-Fi', but they were more detailed than the M1's that as I said in some areas were still better. Howard Popeck also still preferred the M1's and despite having the pick of some of the best speakers around was still using M1's as his personal speaker years later. I kept my M10's for 38 years and in all that time the only speakers I wanted to change them for was a pair of Apogee Scintilla's. I was going to buy a pair with the Krell power amps needed to drive them, but the very honest Howard Popeck virtually refused to sell me a pair as he said their was no way they would work properly in the room I had then. He was right of course. The only problem I had with the M10's in all that time was one T33 failing due to the ferrofluid drying out after about 25 years. Meridian replaced it fully checked my pair at this time and said nothing else was needed.
I heard the M10's at Subjective with the Oracle Delphi and FR64x and also with a Breuer 8 arm. I preferred the Breuer, but both were excellent. In the end though I overall preferred the Trio L-07D with it's own arm (I have since added an SME V in addition) that Howard also sold and I'm still running that daily. I also had on home loan from Howard just about every high end pre amp available at the the time including the the Audio Research SP8 and SP10. I did really like the combination of the SP10 with the M10's, but they had reliability problems and in the end I bought Howard's demo Burmester 808 that I also felt had a slight edge sound quality wise. I still have this as well with no real desire to change and it has proved very reliable over all these years.
I finally traded in my M10's last year with Keith for a pair of D&D 8c's, that I preferred over the KII's, after an long home loan. What convinced me was their ability to pretty much fully take the room out of the equation via DSP. This was despite the M10's being very well behaved in my present room. Keith in fact measured them here before installing the demo 8c's and they were pretty good. The 8c's did measure and sound better though and this was despite my having reservations about the A to D conversion as I'm still analogue about 90% of the time. I was in the end convinced the conversion and the overall result was transparent and the speakers with room correction bettered the M10's.
I still think a good pair of M1's, M10's and even M2's would challenge most speakers up to around £10K so are a real bargain if you can find a pair in good condition.
My apologies for taking this M2 thread a bit off topic with these reminiscences.
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