Harbeth SHL5

Guys - I am sorely tempted to pull the trigger on these. My only concern is the customs pound of flesh that our esteemed govt. will demand
I have fallen in love with these after listening to them extensively at the Audiokarma show in Detroit a few years back - IMHO they are the best speakers under $10k that I have ever listened to. Do any of our gentle members have experience importing higher end speakers? Cutoms duty? local taxes? Other ripoffs? BTW I am located in Hyd.


AudiogoN ForSale: Harbeth Super HL5

Cheers
Sid

Sidvee, you will HAve to pay duty on the *declared* value ( most vendors might consider showing a lesser value). i prefer using a shipping agent like Fedex/Schenker/DHL as they take care of the duty and take it from you later...so no haggling with customs for you.

So Arj, assuming that the seller will declare $3000 (one has to consider insurance with the shipping carrier I suppose), will my customs damage be 30% - ie approx $900. Ouch, suddenly my $3k speaker went to $4k.
Cheers
Sid

thats true...the option may be to get it declared at 1K as it i a used speaker. New ones may not be possible that way though

Is that the Leben that I hear the Harbeths crying out for?

cheers

I only wish Odyssey - but if do decide to buy this pair (it will depend on the seller and his value declaration), then I guess I will have to be on the look out for suitable amplification to bring out their best.
Cheers
Sid

Sid, The Odyssey Stratos is a very good amplifier. Sure not as good as the symphonic line but for the price they are quite remarkable. And Klaus while a bit pushy on sales is great to deal with. I am quite sure the harbeth's will pair well with them

would be an interesting discussion, this one .. people swear by amps ranging from Naim to Bryston ...with LFD, Lavardin, Sugden etc etc all falling in between

Hi Sid,

I have never heard the SHL5, but I have read a huge amount of material on it a few months back. My impression is that these speakers go with a lot of good amps very well.

Generally people say that one needs to pick the speakers first because they produce the sound after all and the amp to drive them later. I also used to subscribe to this view for a long time. But over the years a lot of observations have made me think otherwise now. Now I think (of course a very personal opinion) the amp should be chosen first and speakers later to match them. One obvious reason is for a given price point there are always a very limited choice of good amps that one may like and usually there exists a lot more choice of likable speakers.

However, in the specific case of the SHL5, it seems to me that one may go with the speakers first and later choose a suitable amp to drive them simply because these will sing beautifully with many good amps.

Disclaimer: All the above is my personal opinion and with my limited knowledge I may be completely wrong. It's just a viewpoint and the SHL5 may be an exception to the viewpoint.

Regards.

Asit..Loved your disclaimer