Resurrected 22 year old Meridian 500 CD Transport

I didn't want to start a completely new thread, but I couldn't find a good thread to simply append to. Maybe we should have a general "Something to Share" thread for quick posts without starting separate threads?

I've had a 2-channel speaker system (full active Linn+Naim) that I was running until about 2000. After marriage, moving twice and having a child, I haven't had a chance to set up that system again because of room configuration and space limitations.

One of the components in my old system was a Meridian 500 CD transport (a disc reader only, with no DAC). I thought I'd bring it back into service for my desktop system. When I purchased it around 1996, the Meridian 500 was regarded as one of the top high end CD transports. Mine has been sitting on a shelf in the garage for the past 15 years. It had accumulated a good layer of dust and grime, some of the screws for the case had rust, and connectors had some oxidation. However, it cleaned up nicely, especially with its glass top.

I fired it up and it began working again, except that the drawer tray tended to stick and stop part way. I searched the web and found that Meridian owners have had this issue with older units. I opened it up and lubricated mechanical parts but the problem was that a motor drives a rubber belt to move the tray, and the belt was slipping on the motor pulley. Over time the rubber belt was probably becoming dry and less flexible, providing less grip. Someone recommended applying toothpaste to the belt, and this worked great.

This thing is heavy and solidly built. When I opened it, I found that the just top of the case alone probably weighs more than some entire CD players. I connected it to my Soekris dac1541, which feels like a flimsy toy in comparison.

It sounds great, although I only have about a dozen CDs handy at the moment (my CD collection is packed away in boxes). Most of my listening will continue to be on streaming services (Tidal, Spotify, and now Qobuz), but I will be digging out CDs that didn't make it to streaming.

 

Looks awesome.

We do have a pretty robust CD transport thread that I think this would fit nicely into.

 

Okay, found it. I'll re-post over there since it's the best place. Mods, feel free to remove this thread if you want to clean up the double post.