I own a pair of Ospreys and Nighthawks, and I still think that designer Pat McGinty had an excellent product design, cabinetry, superb quality sound and investment value before his company closed earlier in 2005. The speaker high-end of the market is indeed on the downside, as the home theatre market has taken over the hifi industry, with smaller size speakers and inwall speaker installations growing at the expense of companies like Meadowlark. In addition, I get the impression that neither Pat or his wife Lucinda were real "marketing or financial people" or had staff members to strategically target their company's direction, combined with the fact that their company was moved to Watertown, New York, (from San Diego, CA) with very little financial injection (under financed)obtained from the New York State industrial incentive program. Although that regional area provided Pat McGinty and his Meadowlark company choices for fine wood and cabinetry, as they were next to the Canadian border, their transportation costs on finished goods must have been extremely high in addition to their operational expenses, combined with the fact, that they utilized expensive drivers only manufactured in Europe, and the dollar vs. the Euro in the last 24 months had a disadvantage of close and to as high as 30%. That would certainly burden any manufacturing operation. In the end, the McGinty's should have learned a bit of marketing from the Orange County Bikers, as they are also in New York State, but marketed themselves to stardom via non-network television and by originally copying California bikes to achieve their marketing goals. The US audio speaker manufacturing industry has had many closings throughout the years, all mostly due to the failure of its management (usually the speaker designers)not having a marketing plan and the right people around them to help them execute them. Only Dr. Amar Bose has been able to accomplish that with tremendous success with a still privately held corporation selling in the billions every year. That's a true marketing success. The McGinty's should have adapted or copied from Bose Corporations history. In summary, I still think that Meadowlark has a place in the audio entertainment industry and that can be salvaged with the right marketing and management personnel. Obviously through their history, many people bought their Meadowlark products (like myself), and I just wonder if Meadowlark ever researched that fact as to it why's? Who were my end customers? Why did they buy my products? What are their demographics and psychographics? The many etceteras and the many why's give you the direction and a mission, many times to focus ahead of the curve. Just ask the P&G and the Colgate people about that. Anyways, I still think that Meadowlark was one of America's best speakers manufactured in the last 10 years. Now they have become a collectors item, much in the McIntosh realm.
