Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Will Meridian survive?

[Tongue-in-cheek]

Rebadged Oppo player? Can you do better for the money?

[/Tongue-in-cheek]

Given the limited quantities Meridian produces and the extra transportation costs, do you think it would be that less expensive to manufacture the electronics in China? I thought they originally sourced the DSP8000 enclosures from the Far East and had significant quality control problems. Do you know from where they source the enclosures for the DSP8000/7200/5200 now, or for that matter the F80 enclosure?

I do hope that manufacturing can stay in Huntingdon, but it's the one part of the business that feels anachronistic. I've visited a lot of the large electronics companies in the UK. None come to mind that still build over here. The last production floor I was at was the hiker's day. I used to be at one a month. It's all contract manufactured in the far east; even low volume high value items (couple of thousand units and in the tens of thousand pounds).

There are plenty of large cube farms (office jobs) in former production lines, though.

Sad but true. First production, then design (which is starting to happen now), then I'm out of a job, too.

(Actually I have just thought of one company with UK manufacturing, but it's specialised stuff and as much mechanical as electronic).

Then again, perhaps there is some value seen in the fact that it's 'Made in the UK'. It could be difficult to justify these prices for something made in China, Taiwan or sections designed in India.

This site provides details about the manufacture of the DSP8000 enclosures http://www.compfab.co.uk/speakers_case_studies.htm

I like the look of the DSP7000s better than the DSP7200, but then no one asked me

Me too. I wish the 7xxx was a scaled down version of the 8K (with 4 side firing woofers instead of 6). With similar looks. I think it would sell nicely.

I might be reading this incorrectly. I read them as making the prototype cabinets (ie models) rather than the actual production loudspeaker cabinets.

Cheers,

iirc that local manufacturing is a key part of the Meridian workflow. Technical changes are immediately available on the production plus it can cope with production of a couple of "one off" batches.

Ian:

I'm sorry, I hit the edit instead of the quote button. I'm still getting used to having the edit button on my screen.

I'm not saying that local manufacturing isn't a key part of Meridian's process. I'm saying that the firm that is linked (from reading their info) helped with prototyping and taking the prototyping into production.

Cheers,

no worries about loosing the edit - however my comments did not relate to your post but an earlier one. Just your post was last hence appeared as name in post - I personally don't like this feature as on a slow connection is non 3G iPhone connection, scrolling back to find pertinent post is slow.

The gist of the missing part is:

1M rely on a highly integrated production line to incorporate design revisions and test plus allowing one off small batch builds for boards that are built to order.
2 that if M went low quality case and mass produced outside Uk, then I may as well choose Denon or a cheap DVD manufacturer such as Oppo.