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With the state of Meade at this time, if I had an LX-800, I would ask for a refund. It is possible that they may not make it through this bad time. It is also possible that they will drop the product suddenly as they have in the past, leaving people with a mount that has no support.
Later, if they found the problems and corrected them, then I would consider buying another LX-800, maybe. But right now I think this is not a good thing for the consumer to be involved in just too risky.
Blueman

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With the state of Meade at this time, if I had an LX-800, I would ask for a refund. It is possible that they may not make it through this bad time. It is also possible that they will drop the product suddenly as they have in the past, leaving people with a mount that has no support.
Later, if they found the problems and corrected them, then I would consider buying another LX-800, maybe. But right now I think this is not a good thing for the consumer to be involved in just too risky.
Blueman

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I won't comment on the return the LX800's suggestion. But Meade's last financial statement has to have everyone at least put one eyebrow up. They are burning through cash like crazy (about $500,000 per month), the have a huge back log of inventory, and sales are about half of they were this time last year. In the last 6 months they went from having almost $4,000,000 cash on hand, to less than $700,000...

Either they are getting ready for a massive Christmas rush or...

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The reduced sales are from having (foolishly) announced the LX800 and 600 before they were ready, thus drying up sales of the LX200 and LX90. The extra inventory likely includes all the returned LX800s. Remember, one of those is like 50 Costco-refractors in cost. Thus, the inventory doesn't concern me as much as the cash flow issue.

Bottom line, they need to execute on the LX800 and LX600, and do so expeditiously. If they had done so on time, they'd probably be in a far better condition right now.

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I won't comment on the return the LX800's suggestion. But Meade's last financial statement has to have everyone at least put one eyebrow up. They are burning through cash like crazy (about $500,000 per month), the have a huge back log of inventory, and sales are about half of they were this time last year. In the last 6 months they went from having almost $4,000,000 cash on hand, to less than $700,000...

Either they are getting ready for a massive Christmas rush or...

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The reduced sales are from having (foolishly) announced the LX800 and 600 before they were ready, thus drying up sales of the LX200 and LX90. The extra inventory likely includes all the returned LX800s. Remember, one of those is like 50 Costco-refractors in cost. Thus, the inventory doesn't concern me as much as the cash flow issue.

Bottom line, they need to execute on the LX800 and LX600, and do so expeditiously. If they had done so on time, they'd probably be in a far better condition right now.

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I hope you are right about the reduced sales being mostly due to the problems with the 800 and the 600 still being "massaged"... Their financial statements only blame 31% of their problems to the LX800/600... Another 27% of the sales problem is tagged with decline of entry level (Costco/Walmart) "toy" level products... That leaves 42% of problems that we are left to consider.. I think that much of their problems stem from the brutally mangled LX80 release... Anyone considering that mount, would likely take the 30 seconds to do an internet search as to what people are saying.. and most of those comments aren't pretty.

The financial statements are not clear if the sales revenue from the LX80's are Net or Gross. If they are gross, that means they have only sold about 20-40 LX80's a month in the last 6 months.. While that is 20-40 more per month than 600's or 800's that is still a remarkably low number for a brand new product that had a ton of hype and even more anticipation.

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Synta bought out Celestron a few years ago, who would buy out Meade if they file for bankruptcy? Is there a large enough astronomically related company that would want their products?

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I wish I had a dollar for every post I have read over the years predicting Meade's dismiss, I would be rolling in it by now Funny thing is they just keep hanging around.

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Almost exactly 2 months ago, Mantis707, after implying that I didn't know jack about trading shares, and even less about reading Meade's Financial Statements bet me that $3.45 was the "buy buy buy" share price for Meade. Well if you'd shorted 5000 shares in Mid September (like I suggested them... The post is still there ) you would have made enough to buy a fairly nice AP mount (or 2 LX800's if they ever sell them again) by now.

Rolling in it? Not exactly, but basically a 60% return in only 2 months is nothing to be sneezed at.

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Rolling in it? Not exactly, but basically a 60% return in only 2 months is nothing to be sneezed at.

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Not to start another fight, but have you looked at this? I can't quite reconcile what you just said with the information on the link I provided. Strange, indeed.

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Rolling in it? Not exactly, but basically a 60% return in only 2 months is nothing to be sneezed at.

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Not to start another fight, but have you looked at this? I can't quite reconcile what you just said with the information on the link I provided. Strange, indeed.

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No, that's right and that is exactly what I was saying and exactly what I predicted.. You can make money when you think a stock is about to collapse. Its called shorting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_%28finance%29.

If the stock goes down in value you profit the difference. If it goes up you are screwed.

To anyone who could read (and understand) a set of financial statements it is easy to see that things are not all sugar and cream in the land of Meade.

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