Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems German Distributors, support and pricing discussion

I am sorry to hear all of that. Unlike Stephan, I can't claim they are dishonest. My complaints are all about simple pricing policy.

The pricing of the HD621 at �2300 was enough in itself to put me off buying any of my Meridian in Germany. While it's true as Armin says that Sooloos pricing is a lot more reasonable, as I said before that is clearly an attempt to push a product line, whereas the HD621 sells almost entirely to people who have already bought into Meridian, and are therefore a captive market. That seems very cynical pricing to me (although shared by distributors in other countries, as noted by Jaco).

As said earlier, the discounted price for the HD621 I was just offered by a German dealer was good enough that I may indeed buy it from him. We'll see what happens when I have scraped the money together.

I don't want to single Audio Reference out too much - my personal experience of them doesn't warrant it. There are problems all over the distribution business. The German distributor of Ayre lost them my business altogether, which is partly why I am here (Meridian) now: I also complained to Ayre in writing about them (which they responded to). And the stories I have about the vdh distributor in Belgium are too shocking to repeat...

They should, but from another perspective.

I think "MM" of Audio Reference is also a very friendly guy and nice to talk to. That he is talking in superlatives is rather the nature of the business where a very big fraction of installer oriented customers show such behaviors themselves. Meridian is not really a cheap brand. So that appears to be a given. A bit of ranting about this forum is therefore rather natural. In the times where email, internet and low shipping costs within Europe have changed the markets, squeezed them together so to say. We all appear to surf lately on the pure peaks, where was the best price quoted, etc.

The perspective that it should be looked at, is whether the UK, which is probably followed by the USA as Meridian's two strongest countries of absolute turnover, if all conditions for dealers and distributors are similar per country. Most likely in the end it is a debate that Meridian is currently not capable to balance all prices, informations, all market expectations and currency fluctuations.

Are UK dealers buying directly from an inhouse distribution branch within Meridian UK ? We cannot compare apples and oranges in term of price levels. It is up to Meridian to keep the balance.....or to avoid that a certain distributor expects to be first, where indeed he is not.

The distributor and dealer can give discount if they really want. I had good offer for DSP speakers from a UK dealer, but they wanted to sell to me so gave me also a good offer. Since i like both the dealer and the distributor i choose that (more epxensive) option.

The HD621 looked to be 50% more here when announced so i bought that in the UK.

Sure, but imagine in the UK, which I asked for above, as I do not know, Meridian is the UK distributor themselves ? How can one expect that in a different country, in a different situation of first or multi level sales structures (ein- oder mehrstufiger Vertrieb), all prices are equaly possible ? If they give in, maybe they make a loss, where in another country that cheap dealer still makes a profit ?

In the end, for some reasons I tend to believe that UK will always be previliged, that in terms of information and pricing. Point.

We all do not know, if really all countries get equal pricing and informations, but we tend to expect it, and dealers pretend that this is true. Nobody wants to admit he is second in the chain. As said, internet and email have squeezed the world together.

Also imagine a dealer needs a different margin in country "X" than another dealer in another country, due to a different cost structure (rent, energy, staff). Without his cut he may not carry Meridian at all. So we all can only assume what the different expectations per market and country are, but in principle we do not care. We only expect an equal price in all countries and that is most likley never to happen. You can and will always find a better deal somewhere......somehow.

Perhaps we should separate the question of country by country differences in pricing, which can reasonably be put down to Forex fluctuations, local taxes and transportation costs, and the alledged mis-information described above?

The separation sounds sensible. (I tried to be clear that I don't have any experience of the aforementioned misinformation.)

But no amount of reasonableness can make it cost 25% of the cost of an HD621 to import each one, unless you drive them individually by taxi from Huntingdon to Hamburg. People who have bought into Meridian and feel they need an HD621 already are easy targets, and are being screwed over when they buy one at the German list price.

It's not really only about the price difference. The german distributor can sell this stuff for any price they want. Those not ready to pay these prices will go somewhere else. It's their claims to justify these insane prices (in the case of the top-speakers). I personally have no problem paying a little more and buy locally. I've always done that when I thought it was worth it. The distributor however is claiming the higher prices are due to the service he has to provide and that's the point where I have to ask, what service?

I'm a DIY guy, when I buy new equipment, speakers, amps, whatever... I set it up. As I have stated before, it makes no difference if I take delivery from a driver who was sent by my local dealer or a driver from a shipping company delivering from the UK. So for what service should I pay extra here?

There are however people buying Meridian equipment who do nothing. They buy it, wait for their local dealer to drop by with the equipment. The dealer will then do the installation, all calibration and so on and that's the case when I accept a slightly higher pricing. Truth is however, when you tell a UK dealer you don't require the setup and calibration service, they'll usually give you some more discount. At least that's my personal experience in the UK.


Now, MM of Audio Reference can be the nicest person on the planet, same goes for his staff and his family who all show up here and there at shows, specifically High-End every year in Munich. But I'm not looking for new friends there (I do meet old friends there however), I want to know about audio and video stuff and do business with Meridian (via a dealer).

We all know Meridian doesn't talk future products. That's fine, so why does the german distributor give false information to people? At some point, that made me scratch my head and think.

A distributor should be high up in the chain and MM has claimed he among other large distributors is actively taking influence on what's being developed at Meridian. So he should know.
So why am I told there won't be a 3100 replacement? To make the person I asked for jump on the 5200? Or was it simply because he didn't know and made something up to make it look like he knows? I have no problem when someone tells me he doesn't know the answer to a question. I also have no problem if he's under NDA and can't talk about it. Just say "there's no info about it yet". That's really fine.

I asked a UK dealer about possible new DSP wall-mount speakers when Meridian discontinued the 300-series. He told me he doesn't know and would get back to me after the next dealer meeting and so he did. That's ok for me. I have patience, I can wait for some info. I just don't want to be treated like an idiot or being fed false information.

What about the digital non-Meridian sub? I specifically asked if this would limit the output or if it would work 96/24 and was told this is not an issue and it would work. If he doesn't know he should say so and not make things up.

Let's say I'm a new Meridian customer and have to choose if I want to go with passive/active or DSP speakers and I'm told this nonsense. What if I decide on Meridian speakers and say, a Dynaudio digital sub - only to find out I can't do 96/24 with this combination, despite I've been told it would work. I'd be really pissed. Maybe if one knew before, it would have affected the purchase decision, either to go with a full Meridian system or maybe a Meridian processor + some Dynaudio/Adam/whatever active speaker system instead of Meridian DSPs.

My point is, I want to know about this before. If the distributor doesn't know, he should say so. I don't know what the problem is, either he's making things up to give the impression to know everything about Meridian or he's simply trying to make people buy his stuff at all cost.
If it's the first, then I wouldn't want to deal with him because I can't rely on the information given. If the latter, I don't want to deal with him because that's not they way I like to do business.

There's been a similar case in the US a few years ago when someone bought a Meridian projector because the US distributor told him a future firmware version would allow an anamorphic lens. This never happened and in the end, he was screwed. I'm not sure how he solved this issue.

Everyone is asking for 3D these days. What would happen if such a distributor claims this is a feature that can be added via firmware to a Meridian projector and based on this, the decision to buy it is made? What if such a firmware would never come out? Sure the customer would have bought a Meridian product, the distributor would have made some money. But that customer will probably never come back.

Either way, I hope those buying locally are receiving good prices and great service. I'm not saying everyone should buy from the UK. Buy where you are more comfortable. I'm buying in the UK, because I feel treated better in the UK by dealers who are in my experience more knowledgable.

But again, this is just my personal opinion.

Hmm, some food for thought for me there with my potential up-coming DSP speaker purchases !