Cant understand Meridian Gear

Hi Mudcat. . .Meridian's gear is highly flexible but the byproduct of that is that it can be confusing. As Porschecab has offered, I too will offer to help. For what it's worth, some of the G series stuff can be configured as a traditional analog processor, or to operate in the digital domain, or both. You might see letters following the model number which are a hint about the configuration. For example a G68AXV is configured as analog ("A"), with balanced outputs ("X" for XLR) and offers video switching ("V"). I personally have a stack of 500 series gear (518, 562v, and 565) and althought they work virtually as a single component, the 565 processor could work alone if I had very limited sources (it offers few inputs).

Any help I can provide, just say the word.

Hey, I am not familiar with the 561 per se, but I think you may need to configure the CD input to use the Analog input. Meridian let's you choose what plug set (on the back) is used for a source such as CD. This way, if you have a CD player that puts out digital, you can configure "CD" to look for a signal on "Digital Input #1". Or in the alteranative that same input can be configured to use the Analog input instead. According the 531 manual available on Meridian's site, the CD source is defaulted to look on the Digital input. You need to get that manual and then go to the section on Configuring the digital surround controller without a computer. OR, if you have a computer with an RS232 port, you can download Meridian's software, install it, connect the computer to the 561 and then use their very cool program to setup all your sources, surround defaults, etc.