one of the best cd player available Very smooth sounding. Sweet highs and taught bass.Anyone who has listened to the 508.24 I and has heard its ability
to outperform $ 10,000 reference players could never imagine improvement
would be possible

After more than 10 years of use, I still rank this CD player among the best. The Meridian 508.24 is a classic and I am still able to hear details, depth, and sound which impress me to this day. A word of caution, this unit will also reveal whether you have a "poor" CD recording.

I bought this used for about $1300 from Echo Audio upgrading from a Rotel RCD-970. At first I wasn't sure I liked the sound because it seemed dark and murky to a fault. However after listening to it for several months I became quite comfortable with the sound. All the raves which describe it as not being strident in the least with sweet mids are accurate. If you have a system which is already too laid back and soft sounding--this may leave you unimpressed. If you want to smooth things out with a player which leans more towards analogue (ie no etched and edgy brightness at all) then check this out. They still seem to reliably fetch over 1k on Ebay.

One of the best sounding CD players you will find on the used market. This is probably the best it will get playing normal CDs.
Stereophile Class A recommended and for good reason. Meridian will service the unit, mine just had a transport and laser replaced by meridian just before purchase. Extended highs, Liquid Mid's, and solid deep Bass. I don't think I will ever need another CD player, perhaps maybe a Mark Levinson 309S or a used Meridian 808 only because these can be connected directly to an amplifier and they have digital input connectors, something the Meridian 508.24 lacks. The 508.24 is heavy and built like a tank, smooth operation. I bought the original 508.24 not an upgrade unit. If you find a used 508.24 for sale grab it cause they sell fast on the used market. I did not compare this with other high end players, I mostly purchased this after reading rave reviews everywhere. I am glad I own one.
My associated equipment:
Meridian 508.24
Dynaudio 1.3SE
Mark Levinson 23.5
Proceed AVP2

One of the most musical CDP ever made without sacraficing detail. A stone cold bargain in the used market for $1700. Beware of the banged up units selling at low prices.

You can get a better CDP if you are willing to spend BIG.

After the introduction of many $10k+ CD players, the 508.24 remain one of the very best sounding players at any price. For those reviewers with very negative comments on this player, I would suggest that they have their units checked out and serviced at the factory. I have dropped this player into all types of systems and it consistently impresses with clarity, liquidity, delicacy, weight, richness and quickness. The 508.24, along with the Levinson 39 CDP, are among the very best ever made. You can get better by spending a lot more, but the marginal return is not significant.

In the right system it can give a relaxed listening.

Lacks drive, momentum and clarity. System dependent.

This player is a mixed bag. The sound id pretty good but this player did upset my amplifier. The result was a sound a bit on the bright side. The 508.24 is also pretty slow and muddly. I tried the player at a friends system and the brightness disappeard, but the player still lacked groove and swing.

Musical. Bring back music from CDs I thought are unlistenable.

Needs change of lenses. Couldn't read gold CDs.

Had a choice to buy a used Meridien 588 and this one, but decided this a better value for money. Previously using Sonic Frontier SFCD-1 CD player, but too frequent breakdowns. Very musical and detailed sound. Cymbals sounded better than more defined. Whispering passages of music and voice can still be heard clearly (but this is also attributed to the Dynaudio Special Twenty-Five that are connected to the system and Class A Jadis DA60). Most of all, the Meridien brought back life to some CDs that I have heard once and kept them permanently in the cabinet drawers because of poor and unlistenable quality.

Similar Products Used:

Sonic Frontier SFCD-1 Wadia NAIM CD5

Beautiful natural tonal balance Bass extension Slam Very involving - keeps your toes tapping!

None

Well, after all these years the Meridian 508.24 IMO still stands out as among the top of the crop, even in 2005. I also own a Meridian 598 DVD player which is a relatively recent dvd player from Meridian (a player which many magazines quote as smoking all but the very best cd players). Quite simply, I do not believe it is as good a cd player as the 508.24. Even though it is some 5 years newer. It just goes to prove that when it comes to a great cd player, 2 channel doesn't evolve as quickly as home theater. The 508.24 is still among the best cd players around. I'm no technical guru when it comes to bits and bytes of cd players, but I'm guessing it must be the 24-bit dacs used in the 508.24, versus the 16 bit dacs used in the 598 dvd player that make the difference with cd sound. Regardless, this machine has given me years of pleasure - had it 5 years. Smooth, so non-fatiguing, but at the same time incredibly dynamic. Just slams out the music exactly as it was recorded on the disc. It's incredibly hard to find a cd player that it so smooth to listen to (like butter) but at the same time has so much slam and bass extension. Everything is perfect - beautiful and smooth on the ears but so dynamic at the same time. It's also incredibly involving - the reason I bought this player was because I could just sit and listen for hours, my toes always tapping. Pure joy and no dryness or sterile sound to be heard anywhere. (I found the predecessor 508.20 to be a little stale and dry.) The 508.24 fixed all that. I'll be keeping this one for some time.

Similar Products Used:

Audio Research CD2 Meridian 598, 508.20

very colored, slow and overly fat sounding. A boring experience.

After reading all the rave reviews of this player I bought it after a short demo in my system. What a mistake I did! Although I lived with it for over a year I now realise that this is a boring and un-musical player. A very system dependent player and certainly overhyped!

Similar Products Used:

Naim CD5 Rega Jupiter

Neutral, soundstaging, dynamics, detail

Neutral, yes its a good thing but not for the inexperienced looking for "wow" factor. If you say "wow" it's usually due to coloration or imbellishment caused by an inaccurate rendering of the music.

You don't "notice" this player it doesnt sound warm or bright or anything it sounds like music. I figure it's just really neutral. Nothing buggs me about it, nothing stands out. Music with great dynamics have great dynamics when reproduced with this player, warm, smooth sounding music sounds warm and smooth. This player can do it all. Sure there is a new generation of upsamplers and interpolators but in a sence the meridian is like a classic car. Even if there's new stuff around, that special synergystic achievement that made everything "click" in the past still "clicks" today. Technology may change over time but our ears stay basically the same (save slight gradual hearing loss). What sounded great in the past still sounds great. So don't change whats broken. The meridian is a legend of the CD era, until a machine of this status arrives for SACD i'll be sticking to my meridian. By all means upgrade to the .24 version. To top it off I even had ModHi-Fi.com upgrade some other parts on it. Don't go buying a multi thousand dollar cd player when new technology is just around the corner, be happy you own this masterpiece.