I hear you Kal, I was vouching for an USB MCH input back then as it would have made the 861 quite unique to this day.

But times moved on and today I enjoy the UHD722 with ATV4K and I have to say that MCH FLAC through VLC or ripped Bluray MCH concerts through Infuse 6 sounds absolutely awesome with the DSP 8000 SE's and throughout the DSP range which forms my 7.0.

I still absolutely love what a dialed in Trifield does with the quality present in the 861v8. What also has changed since the beginning days of streaming is better hardware and software. I run the Meridian 210 streamer (ROON RAAT) to my 861V8 setup for decoded MQA and then I can apply Trifield, Ambisonics or whatever I'd like.

The addition of Shunyata noise reduction technologies throughout the system have also helped immensely to further deliver that Power and Beauty that DSP8kSE's already possess.

Hifi switch Uptone Etherregen with an external 10MHz OCXO clock makes you further feel the air in the recording venue, absolutely awesome!

Can I veer a bit and ask about the 210. I use a roon nucleus and a 218 to feed my 8kse. I can’t justify an 818v3 as I really only stream anymore. Do you have any idea about the 210 in my system or would it be redundant with what I’m using now. Tia Steve

A 210 in your system is redundant, unless you want to add an additional zone or you want to feed audio via bluetooth to your existing zone. An additional zone would also need a DAC with SPDIF input.

Thanks for the reply.

There is a mod though if you are ready for that route to bypass the internal SMPS of the 218 or 210 for that matter and mount a DC-jack.

That can take you closer to the 818v3 with a good LPSU.

I’m considering this myself and I have a contact that I trust to perform it.

Interesting, is the id40 card an upgrade to the dac in the 218 and with the se speakers would the decoding happen in the speakers anyhow?

I had the DC-Jack mod (bypassing the internal SMPS) performed on a 210 streamer with a nice DC cover-plate with the correct cc of the IEC C5 screws.

Connected an IFI IPower Elite SMPS. Wow!

Ofcourse you can get a Farad Super3 LPSU that will probably be even better but price/performance is absolutely awesome with the ifi ipower elite at this point!