Telescope Reviews: EdgeHD or no?

THe focal reducer on a stock C11 does more harm than good, you still end up with coma and feild curvature, the FR was designed more for the folks that do ap and just want a faster speed but from what I have seen ot just makes the starts more bloated not sharp at all. On the standard C8 and C9.25 that I had the FR made things worse IMO, eveything looked much better at F10. As far as USA built scopes over the ones that are now coming from Synta in china that add little to its optical quality, in 2003-4 I bought a new C9.25, USA made gray tube, that scope wasn't even 1/4 wave and had focus shift that was horible even at 120X a planet would jumphalf way across the FOV, I sent it back to the big C and when it returned the optics maybe just made 1/2 wave and the FS was less but still IMO poor. THe last C9.25 I had back two years ago that was built by Synta was very good as far as mass produced optics at least 1/6th wave and would give my M703 a run for the money but the 703 was always slighly sharper no matter waht the seeing was but the C9 was brighter. I think the one thing that the EDge HD scope does which the standard models dont is the amount of SA for a SCT design which is always gonna be there, less so in the better MCT's but on the Edge HD's the level of SA is way low so when you do a star test and have the seeing to do it well the way it focuses exactly is much sharper than a standard sct, its snaps were you are always trying to find focus on regular sct's plus the definition on the diffraction rings is perfect on both sides of focus like it should be. What all this means is the detal that your looking for at focus is gonna look better time after time. I didn't think that this corrector in the HD scopes was all that big of a deal but they did design it into the optical system not just for the AP group but for everyone and now that I have tried one well I could never go back to a standard SCT, been there done that. As far as an 8" MCT well until there made here I dont wanna mess with trying to get parts for the russian scopes anymore, you have to either have a machine shop or go to one if something snaps and they take forever to cool down. As far as the optics after having owned 1/6th.1/8th and 1/9th wave IM MCT's the 8HD smokes them all, I ahve owned enough Intes Micro scopes over the past 15 years since they been imported here to tell how they perform, they are great scopes and when compared to standard sct's they do come out on top but not anymore, these Edge HD's are better and they dont cost a ton and you have to waite. A M809 is around $4500 plus import dutes and shipping a C8HD is $1300, hell a C9.25HD is $2300. For what the 8" mac cost you could almost buy a C14HD. ITs not 10 years ago its 10 years after and the old designs that are good have been improved this ait your daddys sct anymore, you can justify what makes you wanna keep the old design but when it comes down to it these Edge scopes are a different animal, there optics are much better.
Jim