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Hi Duncan
No, I have no direct comparison experience, but I do have an LXD75. To be honest, I think the HEQ is definitely the far better mount mechanically, much more solid and certainly much more quiet.
From an AP viewpoint, both mounts are significantly less than the next tier up such as Vixen/Losmandy, but I would rate the HEQ as a better option than the Meade. Let's face it, the LXD is just plain crude its for visual only. It doesn't take much to see that those cheap plastic motors with the most wobbly coupling to the gear/axis has no finesse or precision whatsoever - sure Meade.com shows some fantastic pictures with this mount, but to me it seems more like fantasy unless you have years of AP skill. The gear cog/screws never seem to stay in place, even with loctite, they just eventually work loose over time and need tinkering.
Oh yeah, did I mention the noise... don't start me, I wonder why Meade doesn't go all the way in cost cutting and start using egg-shells to house the motors... it's a shocker.
Depending on your use and taste, the difference in the software and HC is an issue. The tree-menu in Autostar 497 can be an real pain at times, and IMHO I think the short-cut buttons in the Celestron, Synta and Meade Autostar II are a major advantage compared to Autostar 497. If you are into it (as I have started), the ability to write customised tours in Autostar is great, and I don't think even the Synta HEQ has that. But then the Autostar HC memory capacity for customised tours is only around 64kB (!!!) which is utterly pathetic - even if they gave you 1MB it would make the world of difference.
In summary, I think the HEQ is much better, the Meade is fantastic for a rough and ready throw-around visual goto mount, but that's all. Fox
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