Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
This is a good preamp for me. I use it in a 2 way system with phono, dvd, video and balanced cd. Whith the Meridian 588 and the Meridian 557 around it sounds just great. It must be difficult to find a better sounding combination for the same money. Sometimes, in the matter of fact I can hardly belive I can get better sound at all in my living room. The bass is deep, tight and detailed. The mids are dynamic and blowing. The symbals shines trough the room. A good female voice is treaten superb. The highs is detailed, which is typical for meridian. But if you forget all this and just sit back and cool it when you listen, this is a spa second to none. This is therefor also a review for the combination 588, 502, 557.

Strengths:
Everything

Weaknesses:
Nothing

Similar Products Used:
None

Price Paid:  $1000.00 from used

Summary:
similar too other review, sounds good lots of inputs, ballanced. any critisisms would be :plastic facia a bit sad for the money. I find the ballance steps are too big. combined with 577 or 2 557s it cant be beaten, at the price. Meridian make an excelent cd player pre amp and power amp so you cant go wrong with this one brand system

Strengths:
sounds great

Weaknesses:
none

Similar Products Used:
quad 77 pre

Summary:
This is a 'goodie'. The 502 is a dual mono design with separate boards etc... in one case - the very attractive Meridian design with smoked glass top. It's very tailorable - you can assign inputs and labels and match sensitivities (so that your CD player sounds just as loud as your cassette deck for the same given volume setting). The outputs are either standard phono out or balanced via XLR leads. I use the 502 feeding Meridian's 557 power amp via balanced leads and am delighted with this preamp. I was originally going to buy Meridian's 501 preamp but the 502 is so much better and clearer. It's truly a high quality component. The only slight negatives are that setup can be a bit strange (esp if you're not used to the Meridian way of doing things, but you only have to do this once, I guess. I personally don't favour the digital volume control - although accurate in 1 dB steps, it can be a bit of a pain to turn the volume down from (say) 65 to 15 - I much prefer a rotary control which will give you very quick volume swings. However, this does not detract from sound quality so I'll still go for alround 5 star ratings. Good stuff indeed.

Strengths:
Dual mono design. Quiet. Tailorable inputs and sensitivities. Balanced outputs.

Weaknesses:
Can be complex to set up. Digital volume control can be a pain sometimes.