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Meade in Financial Trouble ?

Space Dragon

By Space Dragon
in The Astro Lounge

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Astro_Baby

Astro_Baby

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Well they have traded out of bad times before, maybe they will again but Looking at their most recent filings I wouldnt give them much chance. With their largest customer witholding payment and their cash in hand situation its not very favourable.

Its a shame because a always aspired to own one years ago. Now I have the cash the QC is so poor I wouldnt risk it.

The RCX fiasco followed up by the LX80/800 diasco must have hurt like hell.

I cant see anyone buying the company unless it was for a song because the brand appears to have been dented so badly by the current management.

If I had a mount at Meade awaiting repair I would be one worried bunny right now. :(

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Merlin66

Merlin66

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If I could raise the venture capital I'd make an offer on the Coronado side of the business. The current products (don't like the latest SMII etalon tuning - they can keep that!) are very good for what they are..the PST has been around since 2003 and the SM series of external etalons perform very well.

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astrofox

astrofox

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I read all about Meades poor reputation on mechanics and electronics and still went ahead and bought an 8" LX90 secondhand. Guess what it perfomed faultlessly from day one. Only trouble was a open circuit on the hand controller cord. A RJ45 compression kit and conectors from maplins soon sorted that out.

I must admit I bought the scope with a plan B that if the mount failed I could always mount it on a GEM

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hunterknox

hunterknox

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If I could raise the venture capital I'd make an offer on the Coronado side of the business. The current products (don't like the latest SMII etalon tuning - they can keep that!) are very good for what they are..the PST has been around since 2003 and the SM series of external etalons perform very well.

I'd buy an etalon off that man!

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earth titan

earth titan

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I read all about Meades poor reputation on mechanics and electronics and still went ahead and bought an 8" LX90 secondhand. Guess what it perfomed faultlessly from day one. Only trouble was a open circuit on the hand controller cord. A RJ45 compression kit and conectors from maplins soon sorted that out.

I must admit I bought the scope with a plan B that if the mount failed I could always mount it on a GEM

I agree about the reputation. I owned one of their American built SCTs and it was fabulous. The mount it was sold with got a bad reputation and at some time had broken and been discarded, so I can't comment on that side.

If you speak to most Americans, they will only buy USA made products if they can and despite the cost savings, I think their business suffered when they moved manufacturing as a result.

They've been rescued before (a number if times) and will probably be rescued again. Probably be purchased by an Asian company looking for a brand.

Typed by me on my fone, using fumms... Excuse eny speling errurs.

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Astro_Baby

Astro_Baby

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Americans iften seem very insular. Fact is almost everything, including T V is now made in China. Still so long as your happy cos its got a Meade badge on it then ai suppose thats fine.

I wish I could run the company. I helped turn round two companies years ago but I was playing some mind games in the car and I wonder if without a mass of cash you could do much for Meade. They seem to have a lot of busted inventory which is a real headache plus a loss of confidence from the dealers. To fix the inventory would cost cash as youd either have to write it off or rework it...both of which cost and ai just dont know how yo would get the dealers to settle when they are holding broken stock without you having to swallow the loss so more cash...which ameade just dont have.

Unless someone lets them go bus firts to de toxify the debt and stock issues and can then aford to spend big on new products I cant see hwo much could be done.

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andrew63

andrew63

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Well i for one will be sad if meade go out of business. They have contributed an lot to the astronomy community over a number of years. They can offer genuine product diversity from much of the mass produced clones that synta are happy to ply.

Don't get me wrong, synta makes some great stuff but a fair bit of celestron and skywatcher can be the same with a different sticker on. It's hardly a genuine alternative.

andrew

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earth titan

earth titan

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Sell the inventory and use the cash to fund the development of 'spectacular' optics 1/12 wave minimum ish, to be sold on a Worldwide basis - but in lower volumes. The higher revenue per item could probably make them more profit than cost competing.

Forget competition with Skywatcher and Celestron. They will always beat Meade in price and mass production.

If I had the money (and I don't) to buy a company like Meade, I would aim for making it a global quality brand - a bit like a BMW of telescopes.

The old marketing phrase used to be 'differentiated' if I recall my old business development days.

Typed by me on my fone, using fumms... Excuse eny speling errurs.

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E621Keith

E621Keith

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Well i for one will be sad if meade go out of business. They have contributed an lot to the astronomy community over a number of years. They can offer genuine product diversity from much of the mass produced clones that synta are happy to ply.

Don't get me wrong, synta makes some great stuff but a fair bit of celestron and skywatcher can be the same with a different sticker on. It's hardly a genuine alternative.

andrew

Celestron and Skywatcher's product line diverge at the mid range to top end with very little overlap. Celestron makes SCT and EdgeHD as well as EQ mount driven by servo motors, while Skywatcher focuses on Newt, APO and mounts driven by stepper motors.

Meade's product range is about as diverse as Celestron. Don't forget Meade's recently discontinued LXD75 was a EQ5 controlled by Meade Autostar. Most scopes in the LXD series were Synta and JOC product but with a Meade sticker. If you ignore department store and entry level product, Meade current products range consists of

1. 1 Portable fork mounted ETX,

2. 1 Single fork mounted CAT (LS/LT ACF or SCT),

3. 3 Dual fork mounted CAT (LX90, 200, 600 - ACF or SCT),

4. 1 EQ mount (LX80),

5. Coronado Ha Scope,

6. United Optics/JOC manufactured APO.

Compared to Celestron non overlapping product range

1. 2 Single fork mounted SCT (SE),

2. 1 Dual fork mounted SCT(CPC - EdgeHD or SCT),

3. 3 mounts (4/5SE, 6/8SE, CGE Pro),

4. 2 types of CAT OTA (SCT and EdgeHD).

If you ignore the Coronado and the UO rebadged APO, then you will find Meade's product diversity is about the same as Celestron. Meade does have more dual fork mount series, each with a few additional features, but Celestron achieve the same through optional add on. Furthermore, if you add in the CGEM and CG5 (which partly overlap with EQ6 and EQ5) it will narrow the gaps even more. Most importantly Celestron OTA can be used on non Synta mounts and Celestron Mounts (include 2 forks) can be used with non Synta OTA, this makes Celestron's product more versatile than Meade's.

In terms of product diversity Vixen probably come second to Skywatcher. Sub aperture Mak, 1 VISAC, 1 imaging Newt, 4 types of refractor (achromat, Petzval, ED doubet, and one 4 element triplet), 4 classes of mounts (Porta, GP, Sphinx and Altux). Unlike Meade who now manufactures in Mexico, Vixen still make many of its product in Japan. Also unlike Meade, Vixen have a good reputation on quality, something that differentiates them from other mass market manufacturer.

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Astro_Baby

Astro_Baby

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Your contract is always with the supplier you bought from. So they would have to honor the warranty. If Meade were to go bust it may be the supplier would be in a position where the only thing they could do would be to refund you as obviously repairs might be impossible depending on what was weong. For instance if it was a circuit card that couldnt be sourced than theres nothing to do but hand you back the cash.

After a certain amount of time of course the product would be out of warranty and thats that. The sale of good act says good must be of reasonable durability. Ie if you bought a paper coffee cup it mist be able to work at least once. What would be a reasonable amount of time for a telescope would have to be tested in court. Bear in mind that for a car people have lost cases bacuse the fault became apparent only after 18 months.

The sale of good act doesnt cover business to business transactions so a dealer would have to rely on contract law and whatever was in the contract. That might mean a dealer would just have to swallow the loss. Theres a thought, Meade taking a dive might ally mess up some dealers. Scary stuff eh ?

I think if yo owned a bit of kit that failed and no spares were available you would be, quite frankly, stuffed after a year or so.

As a littel heartwarming tale I needed a spare for a unitron scope and called nitron and asked. Bear in mind they got out of scopes ages ago in the 70s. A very helpful guy went off to check their junk stock bins and found me a spare and shipped it to me for free.......hows that for customer service !!

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E621Keith

E621Keith

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Looks like buying a 16" Lightbridge wont be an option in the future to satisfy my aperture fever. Maybe building will happen after all!!

Does anybody else make 16" dobs of a similar price to Meade?

Dave.

Not at the moment, but the 16" lightbridge has sold out. The closest is the Sky Watcher Astrobaby suggested, but it's about £400 more expensive.

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russ.will

russ.will

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Looks like buying a 16" Lightbridge wont be an option in the future to satisfy my aperture fever. Maybe building will happen after all!!

Does anybody else make 16" dobs of a similar price to Meade?

Dave.

Don't worry, there'll soon be one on UKABS from someone who didn't realise how large it was from the pictures/can't be bothered to hump it into the garden/doesn't fit in a Ford Fiesta/isn't getting the best out of it in inner city cityville/is frustrated by nearly a months worth of cloud/can't work a sky map/BC effect has worn off/wife doesn't like it in the bedroom, etc, ad infinitum.

Russell

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Astro_Baby

Astro_Baby

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Yup LOL thats the curse of big scopes, people buy 'em and the gloss soon wears off when they have to hump it about.

Waaaaay off topic here bu about 2 years ago I was offered a LB16" at a craaazzeee price and I got all excited and set off with wodges of cash. After all I reckoned it couldnt be harder than an EQ to manage, it all comes to bits, 15 minutes to set up and therefore no more effort than setting hp an EQ.....such was my naivete. On arriving at ye olde telescope shop I asked if I could check out how heavy the bottom end of the scope (the bit with the glass in it)was. I was somewhat abashed to find I couldnt even pick it up. I was sure the shop were having a laugh and had it bolted to the floor and were filming my efforts to pick up the mirror box but nope...it was so heavy I could barely lift it. Needless to say that was the end of that.

My 250 went the same way...just too big and heavy to lug about. It had its upsides it killed aperture fever. Its an ill wind and all that.

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russ.will

russ.will

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I have ill winds, but that's another story, probably for a different forum...

It's so true though. I got offered an ex-display FlexTube 400p for not an awful lot more money than the 300p that I bought, given that I planned to spend more money adding GOTO, flocking, setting circles, etc. Serioulsy tempting and in the shop, the constituent parts were all one man lifts. I supposed that the 400p would be my back garden scope and that a while down the line, I'd have to buy something more transportable for camping and holidays further afield.

I ended up buying the 300p as I could fit the OTA and mount in a Ford Kuga and so I was seduced by mucho transportable aperture. Six months down the line, I am still scouring the classifieds for a cloud dodging, grab 'n' go, holiday scope.

It turns out that the 2 hour cool down on the 300p, limits it's cloud dodging potential and you could probably double that for the 400p. Likewise, the Dob base for the 300p fits my back door (no sniggering at the back!) with a couple of centimetres to spare, so anything larger would have to live outside. On top of that, yes, the 300p fits in the car, but not if I have the wife, child, tent and everything else that goes along with a camping weekend....

My advice - If you think you want a Dob for all purposes, then buy the one that is one size down from the one you think you can get away with.;)

Russell

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Astralstroll

Astralstroll

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For the price of a Skywatcher Skyliner 400P FlexTube Dobsonian I would better saving a bit longer and go for the Sumerian Optics 16" with the GSO mirror. Apparently these fit into the back of a small hatchback (Astra etc) and are well made. Another solution would be to wait for a second hand 16" so I can use the primary and secondary mirrors and cells and make a better base.

Dave.

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