Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Thread Like Summary - Why does there appear to be zero resale value in Meridian?

As the title suggests, I'm incredibly frustrated with trying to find anyone to purchase my Meridian system
FS: Meridian 5.1 Digital surround system - heavily discounted all for only a newly reduced price of Australian $22,000.

This represents 25% of what the system cost me to buy new only six years ago! I would have thought return on Meridian would have been a lot better than this. The equipment is in as new condition with me living interstate for 4 of the last 6 years.

I'm located in Melbourne, Australia and understand the market is smaller here... but I would have expected a few people would have replied. I've had the advertisement up for a few months and so far only three people interested, still no sale.

I also advertised on a local AV forum and AVS.

What am I doing wrong or is it just that high end second hand has no market.

Hi Chris

I get the impression that selling large complete systems (of any brand or mixed brands) is often problematic, and the most likely buyers are resellers who will do what I'd recommend you do... price and sell the kit individually as speaker pairs, single processor, etc.

Anyone who currently owns Meridian kit is unlikely to need a full system, whilst newcomers to the brand aren't likely to go the whole hog from a cold start.

Good luck with the sale.

Cheers

George

I agree.

I bought a used, first generation 55" LG OLED screen a couple of years ago, 2.5 years old at the time for £500. It first retailed for £8000. My 6th gen SD Panny plasma, bought for £1850, eventually went to a charity shop when I couldn't even shift it for £50. The class leading Philips DVD/SACD player with SDI output which was the best in class prior to the Oppo '83, dropped from £600 I paid, to £59 on eBay.

Meridian's analogue stuff, 551, 502, 555, 557 and dedicated CD players that Bruce noted above, have been pretty much rock steady in price since around 2005/6. It's the DVD players and processors which have dropped with the advent of BluRay, 4K, and market demands for ever newer audio "must haves". As many of us have found, properly designed and built legacy Meridian kit often trounces modern "mainstream" boxes for sound quality, despite their long-as-your-arm feature lists.

Cheers

George

You are indeed very fortunate to have those 8000SEs!

I think Meridian [with software, good design and DSP] have done a fantastic job of squeezing the best performance out of those old 'dusty' drivers. Even my DSP6000s at nearly 30 years old, sound incredible and stunning after a re-cap.

On one hand, it's a shame how little they are worth for a seller, but on the other, a great bargain to be had for the buyer.

To support Chris's frustration of Meridian pricing in Australia, I have never bought a single new Meridian item in Australia. New pricing here can be up to 50% more than the UK or US pricing and as Chris points out, you do not recover much back in the secondhand market. Fortunately I am a hoarder and I have yet to sell any Meridian component that I have bought new or secondhand. The main reason for that is that I have 3 sons, who have all grown up listening to Meridian produced sound and it is being passed on.

I have also been fortunate to have a working career that has had me living and working in many countries, which has allowed me to buy both new and secondhand in the US and UK. The Meridian US secondhand market has always been an overall a much lower landed cost for an Australian compared to the UK market, simply due to the population difference of 300 million Americans versus 60 million Brits. UK secondhand pricing versus US secondhand pricing converted to A$ is generally always lower.

As for the many comments on Meridian's pricing, I just found an email reply from my UK Dealer of 20 years dated 22/07/2008, where I enquired about the cost of a Meridian 240V power supply for a DSP6000 speaker. I had bought four 110V 24/96 DSP6000 speakers secondhand in the USA. The Meridian power supply was going to cost A$3,700 each for one speaker. Now for anyone that has never seen behind the plate of the DSP6000 power supply, this part could be described as "dumb iron". The are two toroidal transformers anchored to the metal back plate with a circular rubber washer and metal disc each. There is the power cord socket and fuse holder wired to the two toroids and then a plug from the output of the two toroids, which plugs into a socket at the bottom of the electronics board above. All that was required by me to overcome this "rape and pillage" was to buy 8 "compatible" 240V toroidal transformers that cost me £45 pounds each. I snipped the wiring on the two 110V toroidal transformers and connected 240V toroidal transformers in their place.

Now given this was in July before the GFC later in the year, the exchange rate would have still been around the A$2.40 to the £1.00 back then. The Meridian price for four DSP6000 240V power supplies equated to a total of £6,167 in 2008, whereas I paid a grand total of £360, plus the minuscule cost of the wire joiners and my own free labour. A grand saving of A$13,937 to obtain the same result. They have been working perfectly ever since without a single problem.

Before anyone starts asking me where did I buy the toroidal transformers, I will not be answering this question publicly on this forum.

The original retail price of these in the USA was US$20,000 a pair. IMHO there is no better bargain in the Meridian secondhand speaker market than buying a pair of 24/96 DSP6000's for quality sound per buck.

Cheers,
Steve M

I am an ardent fan of Meridian and still believe the sound quality of their 15 year old technology is stunning. At the same time I am disappointed that the company's innovation fervor has been in decline for years.With that being said, I believe there are a few primary reasons for the dramatic drop in resale for Meridian equipment.

1. It is a luxury brand with luxury margins. Original owners often have to overpay for Luxury items and those same items often plummet in value over time. Think about a BMW 7 series. To buy one new you would spend nearly 90k but you can find it used for 6k (2003 model). That is 6% of the original cost. Think about an 861v4. New it was 20k in 2003 and now resales for 1500-2k. At least you are getting 7.5% of the original value.

2. Meridian has not kept up with on the technology trends in the industry (home theater at least). While way ahead of the curve in it's hay-day. For example, the surround processor line's inability to decode DolbyTRUE HD is insane. The "next gen" format was released in 2006 and is based on MLP which was developed by Meridian for DVDAudio. I realize the HD621 can process PCM audio at equal resolutions but this workaround is becoming increasing cumbersome with the improvement of streaming content audio and formats. For example, you have to resort to Dolby Digital output on an Amazon Firestick because the DolbyPlus format is not supported and the device does not decode streams to PCM. These are formats that have had wide spread adoption for nearly 15 years. Don't even get me started on spacial surround formats like Atmos.

3. Digital products are the worst to invest in, thanks Moores Law. Because digital technology is always improving by leaps and bounds what once was available to only the most committed audiophiles can now be bought for pennies on the dollar. Every year there is a new innovation, new resolution, and another "veil" lifted from digital playback. Meridian has been the digital leader for decades but now the others are catching up, if not surpassing them.

4. Proprietary technology. Both a blessing and a curse. For system cohesion this can be a win. A fully digital system is amazing but a lot of specialized parts and pieces that don't play well with others can complicate the resale of an item outside of it's own ecosystem. The fact that I can't stream from my phone or other device directly to a pair of DSP speakers without a bunch of other equipment is counterintuitive in 2020.

Not meant to be argumentative , just my 2¢

Nick

Sorry to do this, but back on topic for a minute...
I love M kit and have had plenty of it over the years. None of it has ever been bought brand new though. Second hand values may not be the strongest, but that's not an issue if you bought it secondhand in the first place. Nor is it an issue if your kit sounds fantastic and you don't want to sell. The only time it's an issue is when you paid full price and want to move it on. Some people can obviously afford to take that hit (lucky them) and others can't, but once you know something looses a large percentage of it's value once a year or two old you at least know what you're in for.

Someone used the high end car analogy earlier and it's a good one, 7 series BMW resale values are probably a good indicator of the kind of depreciation you can expect from some Meridian kit.

I just seek out the best value kit I can and enjoy it. Does this help M as a company. Well, I might need repairs or upgrades but more importantly it allows others to move on their old kit and buy new. The very very nice chap I bought my DSP7200 speakers from, was selling them to part fund his 8k purchase, so it all plays a part in keeping M in business. I'm sure putting speakers in cars is far more profitable anyway