Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems CES 2010 speculation thread

Michael - thanks for posting the details on the U.S. trade-in program. I have to disagree with you though, Meridian is definitely making money on this. You need look no further than the disparity between the US and UK prices to see that.

I also think its outrageous that someone who purchased an 861v1 on eBay for $2,000 only pays another $1,000 above someone (like myself) who dropped $18k for a new 861v4 within the last couple years.

This is pure business from Meridian, I don't see any effort whatsoever to recognize existing customer loyalty.

John and others...get real ...please. Of course Meridian need to make money on this. Don't be so daft to think they can sell for cost.

Honestly some comments on this board in recent days leave me amazed.

If M went bust then you'd really have something to gripe about. That they even offer a trade-in is bloomin' excellent. That never happened before and many HH here moaned like **** about that too e.g. when the G series came out.

Nobody entered into a contract that said your 861 would be upgradable forever.

Get over it.

Well, the trade-in difference for a v1/v2 versus a v3/v4 is $2,000, but I take your point. My first thought was to go out and find a scrap-heap 861, but now that v3/v4 used prices are likely to plummet, probably doesn't make sense.

It will be interesting to see what percentage of 861 owners cough up the $16K. That will determine how many older units persist in the marketplace and to what degree Meridian will still support them.

Um, well I think that was my point wasn't it? Michael's post said otherwise, that a warm and fuzzy Meridian was going out of their way to support owners and was not making any money on this.

As far as your other points, I'll just say I'm happy for you guys in the UK.

well.. i was sent a pdf file once claiming:
The 861 also brings the potential for handling moren than 8 channels and for decoding future surround formats- in fact the 800 series backplane allows processing up to 64 channels !

And now we need to swap the whole box to get 8 channels.

That was a file from 1998, so i was hoping this was true all those years

IMO, the price differential between the US and UK is too great. Folks Stateside can and will buy from the UK.

Let's be constructive. For those unhappy about the upgrade program, what alternative would you suggest as fair? The exercise may be helpful in formulating the case you are going to make to your dealer in negotiating a discount off the upgrade price.

+1

Regards,
Carl

There is no such thing as 'future promise' - doesn't stand up in court but a good dealer can help put things right.

I once bought a Silicon Graphics workstation, similar price of a 861v6. I was promised high performance integrated graphics and video right out of the box, just needed to wait for next OS release that would enable the features. It never happened, SGI got the design dramatically wrong and alot of what they promised was abandoned so I was left with a box that did not do as they promised and I could do nothing about it as it was 'future promise' and not existing funcionality that simply did not work. I did cause a bit of a stink and SGI/dealer paid me off to keep quiet with a confidential arangement that was a goodwill gesture but I would not have got a penny had I gone to court.

Agreed. I will start off by suggesting (quite selfishly) that there needs to be a lot more $'s offered to buyers who bought their 861v4 new and NEVER had an opportunity to upgrade it. I think that could/should come somewhat at the expense of the offer to v1/v2/v3 owners who had opportunities to upgrade and never did.

Agreed...so here it is...charge those of us in North America the same amount as you are charging the UK folks because then the pricing is at least level..

What upgrade pricing structure would you suggests? How much should it cost to upgrade:

861V1->V6
861V2->V6
861V3->V6
861V4->V6

You seem to have intimated that purchasers of a used 861 should be treated differently than those who bought new. If that is the case (and I may have misunderstood you), what further cost adjustments, if any, should be made for the buyer of a new 861 vs. a used 861?