Solid State Power Amp for Impression 11A speakers

[R.I.P]

Damn, that's a shame. Parallel imports on those brands and setting voltages to 100V... what a shabby business!
Not sure what the import structures are like in the US but I really didn't know this sort of thing happened in the UK. I thought customs would be more strict and regulated.

Down unda, we have very very strict laws, and Aus Border Force is across it on all angles. If you do try to parallel import (which does happen from time to time but seldom), there's absolutely no warranty nor service support. Plus, the importer of that brand wouldn't touch it! On top of that, when the item passes through customs, they check on whether there's a local importer representing the brand. If there is one then they slam heavy duties to such an affect, you're better off purchasing locally directly from the importer or dealers. It's basically a stupid thing to do, even though there are a few cases and they've not ended well.

I know of one chap who does this quite often through a local contact via a third party in HK. I'm not even sure if the gear is legit to begin with... no warranty, no service support and not even an owners manual! The packing looks original though but I wouldn't touch it with a 10ft pole, even though the items cost less than half! Sometimes...

I purchased my Esoteric digital gear directly from the Aus importer, with full warranty and service, brand new. The best part is, once you want to trade-up, they're willing to trade-in the older gear for very reasonable cost. The difference for upgrades is well within reach, if I opted to do so.

Same goes with my Conrad johnson importer / dealer, I've known them since 2004/05 and have always upgraded every CJ unit I've had this way. It's just more practical, far more cost effective and the right thing to do. When I ran my own dealership many years ago, we were faced with a boat load of parallel imports from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. It was really difficult to keep up but the good thing was, every item that came into our service centre was checked on serial number. If it didn't register at HQ of the parent company, we'd just drop it like a hot potato! None of my techies wanted to touch them. Fair enough!

Hope the demo with the Vitus goes well. The one I auditioned was a huge Class AB stereo amp, that can be selected for either Class settings. Ah! I remember the model SS- 103, superb! It drove both the 11A and 13A effortlessly. Brilliant work!

Cheers, RJ

INTRODUCTION.

Laws vary from country to country and within a country vary from time to time.

BODY.

I was residing with my parents in Austria from 1996 to 2000. When we returned to Pakistan in addition to a vacuum cleaner the only electronic item we brought along with us was my music system. In 1995 cost us approx. $3000, $1100, $900, $400 and $600 for used CLS, SONY amp, SONY cd, SONY tuner and SONY TV. If I recall correctly we were entitled to Transfer of Residence waiver on custom duty.

Fast forward to 2012. Not sell rather give away SONY electronic items. Keep only CLS. From 2012 to 2019 bought in arms length transaction from authorized dealer few expensive items. Expensive a relative term. Expensive for us. Not parallel import through customs. I told the dealer STR and ELS 9 too expensive for me at USA list price. Therefore with some persuasion he gave me a discount. CLS Repair a quarter percent success. CLS soon will no longer be with me. Not sell rather give away Motion 15 and KEF Q300 speakers.

Approximately 5 years ago bought on sale worth $350 KEF Q300 in foreign country and brought to Pakistan through personal baggage. Prior to last year our country not in financial crisis and thus not unlawful to bring luxury items in personal baggage.

Now import taxes combined reach approx. 200 percent of invoice value. This rate even applied to speaker cables and interconnects.

IN FINAL ANALYSIS.

In Pakistan I know of no legislation protecting business from parallel import. Perhaps this issue a case of seller in foreign country beware. Parallel imports have no service and no warranty covering repair parts. And rightly so. These imports compete with goods sold by authorized dealer and harm their profit.

 

[Cayman]

Damn, that's a shame. Parallel imports on those brands and setting voltages to 100V... what a shabby business!
Not sure what the import structures are like in the US but I really didn't know this sort of thing happened in the UK. I thought customs would be more strict and regulated.

Down unda, we have very very strict laws, and Aus Border Force is across it on all angles. If you do try to parallel import (which does happen from time to time but seldom), there's absolutely no warranty nor service support. Plus, the importer of that brand wouldn't touch it! On top of that, when the item passes through customs, they check on whether there's a local importer representing the brand. If there is one then they slam heavy duties to such an affect, you're better off purchasing locally directly from the importer or dealers. It's basically a stupid thing to do, even though there are a few cases and they've not ended well.

I know of one chap who does this quite often through a local contact via a third party in HK. I'm not even sure if the gear is legit to begin with... no warranty, no service support and not even an owners manual! The packing looks original though but I wouldn't touch it with a 10ft pole, even though the items cost less than half! Sometimes...

I purchased my Esoteric digital gear directly from the Aus importer, with full warranty and service, brand new. The best part is, once you want to trade-up, they're willing to trade-in the older gear for very reasonable cost. The difference for upgrades is well within reach, if I opted to do so.

Same goes with my Conrad johnson importer / dealer, I've known them since 2004/05 and have always upgraded every CJ unit I've had this way. It's just more practical, far more cost effective and the right thing to do. When I ran my own dealership many years ago, we were faced with a boat load of parallel imports from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. It was really difficult to keep up but the good thing was, every item that came into our service centre was checked on serial number. If it didn't register at HQ of the parent company, we'd just drop it like a hot potato! None of my techies wanted to touch them. Fair enough!

Hope the demo with the Vitus goes well. The one I auditioned was a huge Class AB stereo amp, that can be selected for either Class settings. Ah! I remember the model SS- 103, superb! It drove both the 11A and 13A effortlessly. Brilliant work!

Cheers, RJ

SS-103 is from Vitus's Signature series which sits above their Reference series and costs £34,000 (USD 41,000). Clearly beyond my reach

After moving here I found out that Vitus has almost a cult like following in Europe (not unlike the following for Pass amps in the States).

I will keep you posted with my audition notes.

 

[Cayman]

Ok, so the country of origin makes no difference? Everything gets a 20% tax? I sure am glad we don't have that in the US. 20% is huge.

So in the UK, it does sound like the Japanese brands are price gouging. Id be just like you and not support them!

I am not exactly sure if there are any exceptions, but every electronic device I imported since moving here attracted the 20% VAT irrespective of country of origin or location where the import originated from. Things were different for European products before Brexit, but since Brexit I see no difference.

 

[Cayman]

INTRODUCTION.

Laws vary from country to country and within a country vary from time to time.

BODY.

I was residing with my parents in Austria from 1996 to 2000. When we returned to Pakistan in addition to a vacuum cleaner the only electronic item we brought along with us was my music system. In 1995 cost us approx. $3000, $1100, $900, $400 and $600 for used CLS, SONY amp, SONY cd, SONY tuner and SONY TV. If I recall correctly we were entitled to Transfer of Residence waiver on custom duty.

Fast forward to 2012. Not sell rather give away SONY electronic items. Keep only CLS. From 2012 to 2019 bought in arms length transaction from authorized dealer few expensive items. Expensive a relative term. Expensive for us. Not parallel import through customs. I told the dealer STR and ELS 9 too expensive for me at USA list price. Therefore with some persuasion he gave me a discount. CLS Repair a quarter percent success. CLS soon will no longer be with me. Not sell rather give away Motion 15 and KEF Q300 speakers.

Approximately 5 years ago bought on sale worth $350 KEF Q300 in foreign country and brought to Pakistan through personal baggage. Prior to last year our country not in financial crisis and thus not unlawful to bring luxury items in personal baggage.

Now import taxes combined reach approx. 200 percent of invoice value. This rate even applied to speaker cables and interconnects.

IN FINAL ANALYSIS.

In Pakistan I know of no legislation protecting business from parallel import. Perhaps this issue a case of seller in foreign country beware. Parallel imports have no service and no warranty covering repair parts. And rightly so. These imports compete with goods sold by authorized dealer and harm their profit.

Thanks RAH for the detailed account of your experience.

Having read that, I am not sure if "parallel imports" is exactly the correct technical terminology for the type of cases I explained.

The ones that I refer to are dealers based in Japan advertising brand new, factory sealed components in the UK hifi classified websites at very low prices (voltage : 100V) and ship them to the UK buyers, who pay the shipping and 20% VAT on arrival and still get the equipment around half the retail cost in the UK. These Japanese dealers have excellent ratings on these websites and based on my enquiries, have been delivering exactly as promised.

I understand that this is different to a dealer based in the UK importing directly from the secondary market in Japan and selling here.

But what bothers me is, if the Japanese dealers are able to 'export' at such low prices (while retaining a profit for themselves) they must be acquiring the 100V of the same hardware at a really low price. This begs the question: Are the manufacturers themselves arbitrage the prices based on local vs foregin markets?

Note: Please note that this is not an allegation against anyone, I am simply trying tap in to the vast experience on this forum to understand how this price arbitrage is created.

 

[Big Dog RJ]

So, if you compare the price of something like this Pass amp that's $14,900 in the US, how much would it cost for you to buy in Australia?

https://www.overtureav.com/brands/audio/power-amplifiers/pass-labs-amplifiers/pass-labs-x350-8/

That would be nearly double the price or close to... we'd be looking at a healthy 30grand! With the particular dealer relationship, hence they have to purchase directly from the importer, keep their reasonable margin, which could be somewhere around 20 - 25% and on top charge GST (general sales tax) which is another 10%. So all up 30grand.

Our GST is similar to what the UK has with VAT (value added tax) but the UK's VAT is 20%! So basically double of the Aus GST...

As I said, depending on the relationship with the particular dealer, plus how eager they are to land high margins, that particular amp could be purchased at 25 - 28grand but nothing less! If anything less, the dealer will lose out... may even have to close business if he did this for every sale.

However, on the plus side, taking into consideration USD currency conversion to AUD, plus margins and GST, sometimes the dealer may want to get rid of floor / demo stock or items that haven't moved for years... this is where items are offered more reasonable and will quickly sell. However, at the end of the day, in Aus this highend audio category caters to a very very small percentage of the population. We've only got 22mil people, and many are not interested in highend audio. They rather own a huge TV screen that can be viewed from the neighbouring intersection... and have a sound bar + a sub and blow out distortion.... That's the highend.

Compared to the US, there are 350mil people, so the percentage of audiophiles or at least the ones interested in decent hifi gear is much higher compared to anywhere else. Nth America pretty much dominates the highend audio market, although there are other countries in Europe and so on picking up... but they have quite a long way to go.

That's why I've said this before, in Aus for anyone to own top end audio gear or even luxury cars, you can't just work hard, save up and go buy highend audio. It doesn't work that way, especially considering the prices we live in now! So those who can afford these sort of systems are pretty wealthy, and financially stable. Unless, you were considering the used-market and those obsolete items that just went out of production then it's possible to acquire top gear and put together a SOTA system but slightly outdated (I'm in this category).

There's no way I'd just dump over 110grand for CJ's latest top of the line pre-power combination, even if I had the means. Simply because the cost of living has gone through the roof and we've got other priorities, such as health, education, groceries and bills to pay. Plus my beer and wine, is of highest priority! Without those two... I'd be lost.

I do happen to know one chap who did spend over 100grand on CJ pre-power gear, so Good for him! But like I said that's only one sale... after that transaction there haven't been any other orders.

BTW, the ML Neoliths which were originally 80grand USD, were selling at the Sydney dealership for 160grand. Only one pair was ever sold and that was basically the demo model, so that's the scenario we currently live in. This is top level luxury goods we're talking, not your average gear.

Cheers, RJ

 

[Big Dog RJ]

In my particular system, the only components I bought brand new at full price were:
Rega TT, Esoteric digital player and the CJ phonostage, plus all the cables and accessories. That total bill of items I paid at the time could have put towards purchasing a whole other system! It really was, I'm not kidding. The rest of the gear; CJ amplifiers, CLX's plus ML sub were all floor stock items, so I managed to get away at fairly decent prices but still quite steep though. However, certainly nothing compared to a brand new pair of CLX's which last sold here for a cool 50grand! So that's the price level we're dealing with down unda.

The CLX's and Ren15a's were both similarly priced at 40 -45grand. Then all of sudden due to global events and economic nonsense, both these flagship items went upto 50 grand each, and they sold out! Now, the new stock has arrived and it's just sitting there... go figure.

It's only the lower end of the spectrum that's selling; Classic 9, ESL 11A's and the Motion series, nothing much above that. Prices are over 20grand when you start looking at ESL 13A's... and it triples further up.
This is what I refer to as big toys for the big boys!
Woof! RJ

Damn! Even my beer went up today... might have to start drinking coconut water!

 

[Cayman]

In my particular system, the only components I bought brand new at full price were:
Rega TT, Esoteric digital player and the CJ phonostage, plus all the cables and accessories. That total bill of items I paid at the time could have put towards purchasing a whole other system! It really was, I'm not kidding. The rest of the gear; CJ amplifiers, CLX's plus ML sub were all floor stock items, so I managed to get away at fairly decent prices but still quite steep though. However, certainly nothing compared to a brand new pair of CLX's which last sold here for a cool 50grand! So that's the price level we're dealing with down unda.

The CLX's and Ren15a's were both similarly priced at 40 -45grand. Then all of sudden due to global events and economic nonsense, both these flagship items went upto 50 grand each, and they sold out! Now, the new stock has arrived and it's just sitting there... go figure.

It's only the lower end of the spectrum that's selling; Classic 9, ESL 11A's and the Motion series, nothing much above that. Prices are over 20grand when you start looking at ESL 13A's... and it triples further up.
This is what I refer to as big toys for the big boys!
Woof! RJ

Damn! Even my beer went up today... might have to start drinking coconut water!

Talking about cost of living in a forum dedicated to pricy high end audio may sound like a cliché, but this really is concern here in the UK as well with rampant inflation running at 11+% and the tax burden at its highest since WW2 (highest in 70+ years).

I always try to buy new equipment on the basis that I do not change them often, but I am also contemplating dealer demo or items with light use considering how the prices in the UK for even the UK made Hi fi has gone up exponentially (case in point dCS Bartok).

In my opinion US is still the last bastion of 'reasonable' prices (if you are willing to stretch the definition of 'reasonable') and I tend to buy whatever I can there, and bring them with me when I travel.

 

[Big Dog RJ]

Yes, that's a fair point.

Speaking of which, I used to do just that quite often! Not buy gear from the US simply because of voltage differences, rather from Spore. That's always been my go to place for highend audio. The Adelphi plaza on orchard Street. It's awe-inspiring...!!! I go completely nutty when I'm there and virtually leave when they close the main doors. The prices are all duty free but that's where the circus starts, trying to bring these items in as personal effects. Sometimes it works, specifically if you have your own dealership plus a few connections at customs but most of the time it's quite risky.

I used to bring along the gear that I can support through the Spore dealer if anything were to go wrong, and I also had my local techs on board to help if there were any service issues. That gear I used to bring in those days were mostly mid-fi gear: NAD, Rotel, Arcam, Audio Lab, Musical Fidelity, Cambridge Audio, Carver, and so on. The best thing is these items were no where near the overall performance and quality of true highend gear but they lasted a long time! They hardly ever had any faults and would just work the moment you powered it up!

The moment I dived into the highend category, not only were they temperamental but also quirky and the cost of tube maintenance and highend SS gear is awfully damn expensive. I sometimes miss those days where I would just power up the NAD monoblocks or Carver amps and blast some tunes away from the Bose 901's suspended from the ceiling! What a blast from the past that was. And they worked 24/7 pumping out tunes regardless of weather conditions.

Highend audio... ha! Everything has to be tickety boo... AC mains power and all down to wire, has to be perfect! At my beer glass is looking tops right now.
cheers, RJ

 

[Robert D]

That would be nearly double the price or close to... we'd be looking at a healthy 30grand! With the particular dealer relationship, hence they have to purchase directly from the importer, keep their reasonable margin, which could be somewhere around 20 - 25% and on top charge GST (general sales tax) which is another 10%. So all up 30grand.

Our GST is similar to what the UK has with VAT (value added tax) but the UK's VAT is 20%! So basically double of the Aus GST...

As I said, depending on the relationship with the particular dealer, plus how eager they are to land high margins, that particular amp could be purchased at 25 - 28grand but nothing less! If anything less, the dealer will lose out... may even have to close business if he did this for every sale.

However, on the plus side, taking into consideration USD currency conversion to AUD, plus margins and GST, sometimes the dealer may want to get rid of floor / demo stock or items that haven't moved for years... this is where items are offered more reasonable and will quickly sell. However, at the end of the day, in Aus this highend audio category caters to a very very small percentage of the population. We've only got 22mil people, and many are not interested in highend audio. They rather own a huge TV screen that can be viewed from the neighbouring intersection... and have a sound bar + a sub and blow out distortion.... That's the highend.

Compared to the US, there are 350mil people, so the percentage of audiophiles or at least the ones interested in decent hifi gear is much higher compared to anywhere else. Nth America pretty much dominates the highend audio market, although there are other countries in Europe and so on picking up... but they have quite a long way to go.

That's why I've said this before, in Aus for anyone to own top end audio gear or even luxury cars, you can't just work hard, save up and go buy highend audio. It doesn't work that way, especially considering the prices we live in now! So those who can afford these sort of systems are pretty wealthy, and financially stable. Unless, you were considering the used-market and those obsolete items that just went out of production then it's possible to acquire top gear and put together a SOTA system but slightly outdated (I'm in this category).

There's no way I'd just dump over 110grand for CJ's latest top of the line pre-power combination, even if I had the means. Simply because the cost of living has gone through the roof and we've got other priorities, such as health, education, groceries and bills to pay. Plus my beer and wine, is of highest priority! Without those two... I'd be lost.

I do happen to know one chap who did spend over 100grand on CJ pre-power gear, so Good for him! But like I said that's only one sale... after that transaction there haven't been any other orders.

BTW, the ML Neoliths which were originally 80grand USD, were selling at the Sydney dealership for 160grand. Only one pair was ever sold and that was basically the demo model, so that's the scenario we currently live in. This is top level luxury goods we're talking, not your average gear.

Cheers, RJ

Yeah, I remember a wealthy guy that lives in Australia telling me back around 2010 that my $50,000 Audi A6 cost about $90,000 there in Australia. I was shocked. Even then, this guy owned a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, and other luxury cars. I don't even want to know how much those cost!

 

[Big Dog RJ]

Yeah, I remember a wealthy guy that lives in Australia telling me back around 2010 that my $50,000 Audi A6 cost about $90,000 there in Australia. I was shocked. Even then, this guy owned a Lamborghini, a Ferrari, and other luxury cars. I don't even want to know how much those cost!

Ha! That sounds like Kyle Sandilands... not much respect for the guy. Although he's on Aus Idol as one of the judges with Harry C Junior and Megan Trainer. If I had that kind of spend, I would get the Honda NSX and call it a day. Only issue is that I required three people to get me out of it when I sat in one for the first time! It's a very low profile, as if your backside is on the road... pretty much. A superb machine though!

It looks like the way things are heading, everything is going up in cost, not gradually but quite rapidly. Just yesterday (Sat) arvo, I finally picked up two pairs of tubes that I had ordered in Aug 2022. Sovtek 6N30P's standard pins and EH 6H30Pi's gold pins. The last time I paid was actually in Aug for the same tubes that were just $105 for a pair. This time round $200 for a pair. So just for two small packs of Input gain stage tubes for my CJ preamp came to $400, Hot damn! At this rate, I'm wondering what an ordinary Phillips light bulb would cost... looks like that late change over from tooobs to SS might happen earlier than expected!

Best, RJ

 

[Cayman]

Ha! That sounds like Kyle Sandilands... not much respect for the guy. Although he's on Aus Idol as one of the judges with Harry C Junior and Megan Trainer. If I had that kind of spend, I would get the Honda NSX and call it a day. Only issue is that I required three people to get me out of it when I sat in one for the first time! It's a very low profile, as if your backside is on the road... pretty much. A superb machine though!

It looks like the way things are heading, everything is going up in cost, not gradually but quite rapidly. Just yesterday (Sat) arvo, I finally picked up two pairs of tubes that I had ordered in Aug 2022. Sovtek 6N30P's standard pins and EH 6H30Pi's gold pins. The last time I paid was actually in Aug for the same tubes that were just $105 for a pair. This time round $200 for a pair. So just for two small packs of Input gain stage tubes for my CJ preamp came to $400, Hot damn! At this rate, I'm wondering what an ordinary Phillips light bulb would cost... looks like that late change over from tooobs to SS might happen earlier than expected!

Best, RJ

Rampant increase in tube prices is one of the reasons why after 20+ years with tubes, I am moving to SS amps to drive my Logans. Imagine the cost of re-tubing triode monoblocks!

Besides, similar to how Digital has closed the gap with vinyl over the time, compared to 20 years ago, SS sound today is almost indiscernible from good tube sound (especially the ones that operate in Class A bias).

 

[Robert D]

Ha! That sounds like Kyle Sandilands... not much respect for the guy. Although he's on Aus Idol as one of the judges with Harry C Junior and Megan Trainer. If I had that kind of spend, I would get the Honda NSX and call it a day. Only issue is that I required three people to get me out of it when I sat in one for the first time! It's a very low profile, as if your backside is on the road... pretty much. A superb machine though!

It looks like the way things are heading, everything is going up in cost, not gradually but quite rapidly. Just yesterday (Sat) arvo, I finally picked up two pairs of tubes that I had ordered in Aug 2022. Sovtek 6N30P's standard pins and EH 6H30Pi's gold pins. The last time I paid was actually in Aug for the same tubes that were just $105 for a pair. This time round $200 for a pair. So just for two small packs of Input gain stage tubes for my CJ preamp came to $400, Hot damn! At this rate, I'm wondering what an ordinary Phillips light bulb would cost... looks like that late change over from tooobs to SS might happen earlier than expected!

Best, RJ

Wow. It sounds like inflation in Australia is even worse than that here in the US. Between the extra taxes and inflation, you guys are getting squeezed bad. You're like me and only spending $$ if you absolutely have to. Hopefully things start getting better within 24 months. I look at this lasting a couple more years. More pain has to come to families before inflation comes down.

 

[Big Dog RJ]

Attn: Cayman

Have you finalised on a short list of amplifiers as yet? There's so much to choose from... sky's the limit really but perhaps if you short-listed your top 5 then narrow it down to top 3 and finalise on 2 then pick one, that's usually the way I go about it. Obviously based on other factors; price, performance, customer & service support, plus warranty if any.

BTW, how did that Vitus amp audition go? Overall sound wise, was it tops?

Let us know how it went and what you've decided on.

Cheers, RJ

 

[Dctom]

I started my ML journey circa year 2000 when I bought a pair of Aerius i speakers which I paired with a Sonic Frontiers (Anthem) EL34 based push pull tube power amp and never looked backed. Since then I have had different ML speakers including the great SL3s and five years ago upgraded to a pair of 11A speakers. I used to run these speakers with Single Ended Class A tube monoblocks (two 845 tubes driven by two 300B tubes per side).
Essentially, for the past 20+ years my MLs have been driven by tube gear of similar ilk.

Recently I moved to London and shipped the 11As here, but I sold the tube amplifiers as I was not sure if they could be transported safely (and also due to space constraints in my London apartment). At some point after moving here, I considered selling the 11As and buying a pair of Stax X9000 and go the headphone way, but some of the dealers that I have spoken with have encouraged me to give it a go with the 11As notwithstanding the constrained listening area I can afford to spare.

I have decided to re-nourish my life with the 11A goodness again, but this time I need to try SS amps (stereo or monoblock). Since I have next to no experience having driven MLs with SS electronics I highly appreciate any suggestions of a good power amp pairing.

My listening preferences and other parameters of selection are as follows:
1. Budget - USD 10K-12K (new)
2. Preferred amplification Class - Class A (Please enlighten me if this is a misplaced belief)
3. Type of music - Jazz, small ensembles, Oriental Classical, vocals
4. Listening volume: Low to moderate (Never high)
5. Listening space - Quite small (15 feet X 12 feet) - One side opening to the kitchen area
6. Front end - I will be using a single source (streamer). Therefore looking for a DAC with streamer and Volume control) (Eg: PS Audio DirectStream DAC Mk2, MSB Discrete with 2 PSU, Holo Audio May KTE with a preamp)

Thanks a lot for sharing your invaluable experience with me.

Hi
I purchased my first martin logans just over a year ago, 11A s like yourself. I am very pleased with them, my room is just a bit bigger than yours with an opening to a dining area.

US gear in the UK is now very expensive with the weak pound. I was lucky with the MLs as they were ex demo.

I am using an Audionet AMP 1 v2 which seems to mate with the MLs perfectly.

AMP I V2 – AUDIONET – 28 Kilograms of Passion made in Germany.

They are 300w per channel into 4ohms and around £6000 from Kevin Gallimore [email protected].

I am in Wiltshire UK so if you are in the area you are welcome to hear the system.

 

[Robert D]

Hi
I purchased my first martin logans just over a year ago, 11A s like yourself. I am very pleased with them, my room is just a bit bigger than yours with an opening to a dining area.

US gear in the UK is now very expensive with the weak pound. I was lucky with the MLs as they were ex demo.

I am using an Audionet AMP 1 v2 which seems to mate with the MLs perfectly.

AMP I V2 – AUDIONET – 28 Kilograms of Passion made in Germany.

They are 300w per channel into 4ohms and around £6000 from Kevin Gallimore [email protected].

I am in Wiltshire UK so if you are in the area you are welcome to hear the system.

Well, the pound is still worth more than our US dollar. I guess the difference has gone down some? I see the euro is even closer to the cost of the dollar.

 

[Dctom]

Last time I went to the US, about12 yrs, ago it was around 2 dollars to the pound! And of course we have to pay 20% vat on top.

 

[Robert D]

Last time I went to the US, about12 yrs, ago it was around 2 dollars to the pound! And of course we have to pay 20% vat on top.

Yeah, that VAT is brutal. Also, what's your sales tax? I guess you pay local sales tax as well?

 

[amey01]

Damn, that's a shame. Parallel imports on those brands and setting voltages to 100V... what a shabby business!

ML - also set line frequency. Of course, it shouldn't matter. But a 60Hz speaker will not work on our 50Hz supply. And vice versa I believe.

 

[amey01]

So, if you compare the price of something like this Pass amp that's $14,900 in the US, how much would it cost for you to buy in Australia?

https://www.overtureav.com/brands/audio/power-amplifiers/pass-labs-amplifiers/pass-labs-x350-8/

Here is the X350.8 at an Australian dealer.

Basically......we take the "normal" price, and double it.

https://www.classaaudio.com.au/mono...3-pass-labs-x3508-stereo-power-amplifier.html
To be fair though we need to factor in:

Exchange rate
GST
Lower volume due to lower population
Rigourous consumer laws in Australia (which we do benefit from because they protect us) can add slightly to the price.

So I'd come up with about $24,000 - $25,000 as a fair price, leaving about $2,000 - $3,000 as "Australia Tax".

 

[Dctom]

Yeah, that VAT is brutal. Also, what's your sales tax? I guess you pay local sales tax as well?

We don't have a sales tax only the VAT which we pay on just about every transaction (except most foods) from buying a record, meal in a restaurant, to getting your car serviced.