Meridian's Ferrari-branded F80 home entertainment system priced at $2,995

We fully expected that Ferrari logo and lacquered paint job to add a stuff premium to Meridian's F80, but this is undeniably insane. The "transportable home entertainment system," which has been hovering about since last March, is at long last ready to be purchased. Finding prospective buyers, however, will likely be challenging. The unit is now available in silver, yellow, white, black and the obligatory red, and each one will set you back a dumbfounding $2,995. We're thinking the unit itself would go for around three bills sans branding, but apparently Italian ponies aren't cheap.

[Ace b @ May 17th 2008 3:58AM]

Hell No.

[Esat Dedezade @ May 17th 2008 4:16AM]

Thats what I said.

[steve @ May 18th 2008 12:42PM]

That's what she said

[kornel @ May 17th 2008 4:06AM]

Last MARCH? You mean mar LAST year. These have been around for ages! I kno someone who has one for at least half a year already.

Anyways, they sound great. MUch better than the bose crap. But yes, a bit to expensive. I would say 1500 would be a good price. But considering the prices of meridian equipment and audiophile gear, im not surprised.

[OziD @ May 17th 2008 4:33AM]

oh yeah that makes sense. 1500 dollars for a clock radio?

you can't even type correctly, why do you expect anyone to believe you know somebody with one of these, and that they sound better than "the bose crap".

What bose crap? Their clock radio that they aren't selling for an outrageous price? Pretty sure I can put together a decent home theater audio setup for 400 bucks that sounds better than this.

LOLWTFSRSLY

[Nick K. @ May 17th 2008 5:11AM]

I call shenanigans.

[nDee @ May 17th 2008 5:44AM]

The ugly B&Os

[nDee @ May 17th 2008 5:45AM]

What I mean is the ugly version,
seriously if Ferrari have the thing made by B&O(Which would never happen though) everyone will be happy to pay 3000USD for that.

[Bob @ May 17th 2008 4:31AM]

I never got how painting some magical logo on something magically quadruples the price of that thing.

[Nick Kim @ May 17th 2008 5:05AM]

Magic.

[gad get @ May 17th 2008 5:17AM]

Magical magic?

[craig#2 @ May 17th 2008 5:37AM]

I would explain it to you, but you wouldn't listen anyway.


jack ass!

[gad get @ May 17th 2008 5:36AM]

@ craig#2

Something the matter?

[craig#2 @ May 17th 2008 5:41AM]

@gad get - Yes!

Lousy day at work I guess. I apologize to everybody!

[Dude @ May 17th 2008 2:11PM]

Well, the composite material they use for the shell is made and developed by Ferrari for their race cars. The electronics are the highest quality class A, the speakers are custom made to Meridian's specs, there are DSP chips. This is not a cheaply made POS, this is expensive to make. Ferrari paint is also expensive paint that is expensive to apply and part is marketing, but the bulk of the money is for research and development. You might want to just listen to one to make the final decision on it. Audiophile grade equipment is always expensive because of the development costs, limited production and higher quality/cost components.

[Dude @ May 17th 2008 2:47PM]

I made a slight error. The composite material was developed by Ferrari specifically for this product and it is Barium loaded for damping qualities. The chassis is dead with no resonances to create distortion from the cabinet. There is NO distortion from Meridian electronics. They are using 3 80 watt power amps, one for each custom driver. The crossovers are digital with NO distortion, The preamp section is digital with NO distortion. You can turn this thing up to full volume and there is NO distortion. The sound is transparent, no coloration, no distortion and just magical sounding. Meridian just really cool stuff. Everything they make gets usually gets the Stereophile Mag Class A or Class AAA ratings. Stereophile are REAL demanding when it comes to product evaluation. In fact, Meridian is the only company that produces products to the Stereophile Class AAA rating for processor technology. This is the finest money can buy and they don't spit these things out of cheap production lines in China. Meridian just makes the best in their respective category and millions of dollars of research and development goes into this product, so part of the price tag is paying for R&D. Meridian wrote the book on DSP processing audio systems that everyone else is trying to figure out. I know it's a lot of money, but for those that can appreciate what the end result is, it's actually affordable.

[Dude @ May 17th 2008 3:42PM]

Slight error, it's 80 watts total. i thought I read somewhere that it was 80 watts per speaker. Sorry for that.

Read the Stereophile review of it. They were skeptical before they reviewed it and Stereophile are REAL nit picky people to please.

http://stereophile.com/accessoryreviews/408mer/

[Mobius_1 @ May 17th 2008 4:33AM]

IF you can afford a Ferrari, you can afford this. For the rest of us, *sigh*

[Esat Dedezade @ May 17th 2008 5:01AM]

Bugatti Veyron all the way.

[Trond @ May 17th 2008 5:24AM]

What you said. This thing looks like a grundig clock radio priced at 10 bucks but pretty much kills everything I have heard in that size.

You cant judge this thing simply by looking at it. You kinda need to listen, does that make sense? Duh.

[gad get @ May 17th 2008 5:31AM]

Mclaren F1! Now that was a work of artistic and engineering genius!.

The Veyron is raw power, nothing more. They designed a body with the intimidation factor of a charging rhino, threw a ridiculously powerful engine in it, and then gouged out parts of the body until the engine had sufficient airflow not to incinerate itself. I suppose that is an impressive feat in its own way, but nothing compared to the sheer brilliance of the F1.

*AHEM*, back on topic now...

[Esat Dedezade @ May 17th 2008 6:19AM]

The F1 used to be my personal favourite, and it is still IMO the second best car after the veyron. And it does have that raw wild untamed animal look and feel to it.

But tehy veyron is... well, its just a tremendous feat of engineering and i love its aesthetics.

[Paul Hanley @ May 17th 2008 5:17AM]

You actually want to hear one of these and be amazed at the sound that fills the room. Everybody knows the Bose is very much style over substance and sound quality is lacking compared to proper hi-fi.

I was at the launch of the F80 and even the sales guys from Meridian were amazed at how this box sounded.

Like with anything in life you pays your money and you makes you choice!

[gad get @ May 17th 2008 5:18AM]

OK.

[craig#2 @ May 17th 2008 5:38AM]

I'm Paul Hanley, and I approve this message.

[gad get @ May 17th 2008 5:43AM]

Wait, YOU'RE not Paul Hanley!

[Mark @ May 17th 2008 5:47AM]

I have one of these. I've had it for about eight months so I'm not sure why this would be a news item. It is quite simply astonishing audio quality for its size. I have a Meridian cinema set up too, so I knew what the sticker shock was going to be, but even so I was only "portable boombox - meh" until I heard it at the dealer. I was sold after two minutes. Now I use it constantly around the house and in the office.

My dealer says that (a) he sells all the units he can get, and (b) he sells them by taking a charge slip dated for 7 days later and letting people take the unit home to try out, to return it no questions asked if they don't like it. So far, no returns...

[AC @ May 17th 2008 6:57AM]

I think the whole Ferrari thing is pretty tacky, but still, how does the sound of these compare to say, a seperates system made with the same budget? On the one hand a non-branded version is interesting, on the other, i do love having a full seperate system.

[Paris @ May 17th 2008 8:35AM]

I've seen and listened to their speakers and they are amazing. If this is of the same quality then its totally worth the money.

The people who argue about this are the same people who will also argue about the price of Ferrari cars and how you can buy other cars at a much lower price.

[M0les @ May 17th 2008 8:47AM]

This was a triumph! I'm writing a note here: "Huge Success"

Is it just me, or does this look a lot like the radio from Valve's Portal.

[brianjg @ May 17th 2008 9:36AM]

"stuff premium" surely you mean stiff premium?

[Bad Beaver @ May 17th 2008 10:12AM]

I see how the added Ferrari tack helps Meridian move these things, nevertheless I would rather have a plain one. I think all those car branded products are pretty pathetic.

[boomhauer @ May 17th 2008 11:43AM]

pathetic, yes... kinda like the dude who drives up in an obnoxious yellow ferrari, then gets out and has on.. you guessed it.. a shirt with a ferrari logo so large it barely fits. ok dude, we get it, we know your weiner is very very small....

[Dude @ May 17th 2008 1:13PM]

I have some Meridian products in my home theater system and know that Meridian would not put something on the market that didn't sound amazing. Ferrari, from my understanding, came up with a composite material that they use for their race cars that they are also using for the shell of this system. So, it is the composite material, the paints and the logo for an added touch, and also they get a portion of the sales. Sometimes, it is a little strange for a car company to put their logo on a stereo product. Some people don't mind, some people do. Personally, it doesn't bother me since I love Ferrari even though I can't afford one. Yeah, some people put down Meridian and other high end audio products because they can't afford them, but Meridian is a class act and I think their marketing people wanted to put the Ferrari logo as a little stamp of the partnership on the development of the product. Listen to one before you slam the product down. Meridian makes some real quality products.

[Dude @ May 17th 2008 1:44PM]

This without the branding going for $300? I don't think so. These guys are using high quality class-A circuitry inside, custom drivers, DSP processing , special composites for the shell, etc. This thing probably costs more than $300 in raw costs alone. This is not a BOSE (Better Off with Something Else) type product. This is REAL audio folks. It probably has better audio quality than a real stereo system only portable. It probably has no distortion at full volume, transparent sound that can fill a room. Meridian is just one of the those companies that won't put something on the market that isn't of the highest quality. These guys are driven to make high quality products and for that comes a premium price tag because they aren't making tons of quantity, they are into quality first, quantity second. Audiophile grade products use high quality components that cost more and the smaller quantities also factors into it.

[Alex Moyler @ May 17th 2008 7:31PM]

Got one at work, completely underwhelming.

[Quentin @ May 17th 2008 8:35PM]

$2,995? does the Ferrari logo on the radio cost like 2,600 to make? I lol at rich people who buy this.

[Tarry @ Aug 11th 2008 2:20AM]

This is great news!

http://www.chasetheglow.com