Harbeth speakers

[ranjeetrain]

Any other FMs interested in a group buy?

 

[asliarun]

I am in the camp too, of people who sympathize with the Indian dealers. They swim against the current more often than not. That's why my first preference was to buy from the authorized Indian dealer. But when things don't work out people have to look for alternates.

BTW, when I had inquired about Harbeth the rupee was trading at 47 to a dollar. So this talk of drop in rupee is not applicable here. I can't even think how much Indian dealer would want for a SHL5 now, now that rupee has depreciated like 33%. May be north of 4.5 lacs? Or even higher?

Chinese dealers are in no way better situation than Indian dealers. Chinese economy faces an entirely different set of problems, which are not known in the outside world. I have lived in China for a long time and I know their economy inside-out. For the record's sake, Chinese retail prices are usually higher than Indian retail prices (or at least should be higher) owing to higher taxation and operating costs. But in this particular case even Chinese retail price is cheaper than the Indian retail.

Would you mind sharing some insights on the Chinese market? I only ask out of academic curiosity as I have been long fascinated by their internal market which I know works completely different from what the external world perceives of China. It is a world in itself.

Apologies for the off topic question.

 

[ranjeetrain]

No problem Arun, not such a big deal.

It's a big topic. Don't know where to start. If you have any specific question, I'd be happy to answer.

 

[asliarun]

No problem Arun, not such a big deal.

It's a big topic. Don't know where to start. If you have any specific question, I'd be happy to answer.

Thanks, Ranjeet. Nothing specific for now, but can you at least tell us what the electronics and component market is even like? Is it a purely "free for all" kind of a capitalistic setup, or is it controlled by key players? Is it regulated?

The sense I get from the outside is that even though China comes across as this highly regulated and controlled market, internally, it is very well the opposite. That is the only explanation I have for the level of innovation and tumult that goes on in the China electronic market - it is always on boil. They seem to have enormous cash flow and debt problems one day, and then it magically goes away.

How about quality vs cost sensitivity? Are Chinese manufacturers interested in high end and are they truly getting into it? Are there any products that you would seriously consider buying for example??

 

[Ash]

Any other FMs interested in a group buy?

I too would be interested in a group buy. However I read on the Harbeth website that the company does not support this sort of activity. Hence if we import from outside India, none of the products will be covered under any support or warranty by Harbeth. After spending so much for speakers, I wouldn't want to be high and dry for support. Would it be worth speaking with Prithvi for a special group discount. He had offered an introductory 10% at the time of the launch. Maybe push him for some more if we have some good numbers !!!! ????

 

[captrajesh]

Before embarking on the group buy, I suggest you seek some expert advise from someone who knows imports. Better still if you can speak to someone (known) in customs.

For the GR Research kits group buy, I had spoken to the Addl Commissioner of Customs just before making payments to the company. When the shipment arrived, he was not there and it took me some persuasion skills and ex Army credentials to convince his junior directly incharge of the department concerned to permit us to take delivery as a special case. Even then, at the Customs Warehouse, while the incharge was extra courteous with me, the junior level guy had the temerity to say "Who is he to permit you; along with you, he can also get into trouble"

Believe you me, they can put you to trouble and you can do nothing about it. Amongst other things, I've seen several exotic mobikes languishing there gathering dust.

Look before you leap.

you will also need to have a CHA (Clearance and Handling Agent) to release this from Customs (ie if Above 50Kg)

Else you will need an Export Import Certificate

Heavy or not, you can directly handle the consignment but is not advisable for onetime importer as managing the whole thing is tedious, vexatious and time consuming. For importing anything, one needs to have an IEC (Export Import Code) but for one off imports, they do have a procedure to allot a dummy IEC.

 

[ranjeetrain]

I too would be interested in a group buy. However I read on the Harbeth website that the company does not support this sort of activity. Hence if we import from outside India, none of the products will be covered under any support or warranty by Harbeth.

It's NOT ONLY Harbeth. No manufacturer supports people buying from another country/region if they have a representative in that place. It's a universal rule. There are VERY VERY FEW exceptions, such as Nikon lenses, HDDs and select few electronics. Only stuff like these come with an International warranty and enjoy manufacturer's support regardless of the place of purchase.

Anyone who buys abroad is or should be FULLY AWARE of this. And the motivation behind such a buy is always to save money. If not, there won't be 100s of threads here seeking advice about buying from US/UK/HK/SGP/MAL. And why only abroad? There are tons of people talking about grey market products. What about them? They are buying it and happily using it. Have they thought that they won't enjoy manufacturer's warranty on it? Why expect warranty and manufacturer's support if one is out to buy in grey market or abroad? I don't get this logic. If warranty and support is someone's quest, then they should just shut their eyes and buy from the authorised D/D at whatever their asking. No need to even think of anything else.

Here is how useful Harbeth warranty is in first place. A grand total of 12 months of such limited warranty, whereas most speakers don't need any kind of service first 10 years of sane use

 

[ranjeetrain]

Before embarking on the group buy, I suggest you seek some expert advise from someone who knows imports. Better still if you can speak to someone (known) in customs.

For the GR Research kits group buy, I had spoken to the Addl Commissioner of Customs just before making payments to the company. When the shipment arrived, he was not there and it took me some persuasion skills and ex Army credentials to convince his junior directly incharge of the department concerned to permit us to take delivery as a special case. Even then, at the Customs Warehouse, while the incharge was extra courteous with me, the junior level guy had the temerity to say "Who is he to permit you; along with you, he can also get into trouble"

Believe you me, they can put you to trouble and you can do nothing about it. Amongst other things, I've seen several exotic mobikes languishing there gathering dust.

Look before you leap.

Heavy or not, you can directly handle the consignment but is not advisable for onetime importer as managing the whole thing is tedious, vexatious and time consuming. For importing anything, one needs to have an IEC (Export Import Code) but for one off imports, they do have a procedure to allot a dummy IEC.

I guess one must acquire God-hood if one were to succeed in importing :lol: So much hassles eh

I am really having my doubts now. As a common man, can I succeed in getting the speakers here? I am so scared :sad:

 

[sidvee]

I guess one must acquire God-hood if one were to succeed in importing :lol: So much hassles eh

I am really having my doubts now. As a common man, can I succeed in getting the speakers here? I am so scared :sad:

Ranjeet I held off commenting till now as I had imported my Harbeth SHl5 prior to Harbeth appointing an Indian dealer. First of all my savings was 25% of the retail in India at that time and at the $ value, about 2 years ago (since no dealer in India, I took US price and added 33%), once I factored my travel, stay, transport of speaker (air via thai airways), Clearing agent comission and custom duty. If you ask me will I do that again, I will say firmly for a 25% savings no way. Secondly when I saw how the speakers were handled at Hyderabad Airport storage (hi tech facility - outsourced) I was very concerned. Fortunately the speakers were fine but believe me they were one step from falling from a 8' tall storage rack while the fork lift guy was handling them as I was waiting there to clear customs. All in all IMO definitely not worth importing a high value component if there is a Indian dealer, unless you are carrying it with you as accompanied baggage. Of-course if it is not available in India it is a different story as it was in my case at that time. YMMV
Cheers,
Sid

 

[ranjeetrain]

what the electronics and component market is even like? Is it a purely "free for all" kind of a capitalistic setup, or is it controlled by key players? Is it regulated?

EVERYTHING in Cheen is regulated. You can't move a finger in Cheen without government being aware of it. Everything I am writing here, it being routed through Cheeni servers (and potentially monitored). But that's besides the point.

The market is absolutely not "free-for-all". The industry here is primarily export-oriented. There are manufacturers completely catering to domestic consumers and they are doing some good work. You can buy 90-95% of Apple iPhone/Samsung Note performance at 1/4th the price.

WRT Hifi, there is a kind of small scale industry. Since all the manufacturing is here, it is not impossible for manufacturers to let some stock "slip into" local market for DIYers. You can get a Wilson Sophia copy at 1/4th or less of price. You won't know it's a fake unless someone tells you. It looks the same, feels the same, sounds the same. The only difference would be, it won't be supported by the manufacturer, it may not have a serial number, or may be even it's not called Wilson Sophia, rather than it's called Wilsom Sophia. Now the DIYer can't be sued.

If copyright infringements were a global crime, half the Cheeni industry would be shut down. There is very very little indigenous is being done. Most is ripping the western design. Of course, a by product of such a process is - sometimes they produce winners at a fraction of it's usual cost, which also happen to have a hint of being innovative design.

Once upon a time I heard a 25 watts SET tube amp. Asking price USD 125. It sounded great and I bought it immediately. It knocked the socks off my flagship reciever (more than USD 4k) on the dynamics and mid-range. Later when I reseached, I found that it was a shameless copy of a western design with an SRP of USD 900. I used the phrase shameless copy because except the labels there was nothing different. Same cabinet, same colors, same tubes, same input/outputs. Change the label and it's a USD 900 product.

This is just one example. Cheeni market is full of such "cheap wonders". I actually thought of importing 100 units of the above amp and distributing in Indian market. Imagine a tube amp costing around 10-12k and knocking the socks of SS amps costing 50-80k. That's Cheen for you. If you know how to tap their domestic market you can buy product that represent astonishing value, not even imagined the usual way.

 

[arj]

..
Heavy or not, you can directly handle the consignment but is not advisable for onetime importer as managing the whole thing is tedious, vexatious and time consuming. For importing anything, one needs to have an IEC (Export Import Code) but for one off imports, they do have a procedure to allot a dummy IEC.

I had to go thru all that for my Tannoys..in the end if you hire a CHA who is willing to take up small shipments they will take care of everything including Dummy IEC and have it delivered to your home.
of course it comes with 'Extra charges"

if you use Fedex and your shipment is >50 kg, it goes into consignment mode by default with all of the above. so for smaller packages you are better off using Fedex ..they will do a door to door delivery after clearing customs.

Since almost every component in my system including power adapters and most cables has been imported from abroad over the last 5 years..have kind of understood this model.

If I had a choice of components available in india at that time, i may have not minded a premium of upto 30% over the US/HK Online prices..
the more expensive the product, the better it is to buy here..

eg when I had an issue with my rather expensive speakers, it was the local dealer who helped out..since i had bought it used it worked out

 

[ranjeetrain]

Ranjeet I held off commenting till now as I had imported my Harbeth SHl5 prior to Harbeth appointing an Indian dealer. First of all my savings was 25% of the retail in India at that time and at the $ value, about 2 years ago (since no dealer in India, I took US price and added 33%), once I factored my travel, stay, transport of speaker (air via thai airways), Clearing agent comission and custom duty. If you ask me will I do that again, I will say firmly for a 25% savings no way. Secondly when I saw how the speakers were handled at Hyderabad Airport storage (hi tech facility - outsourced) I was very concerned. Fortunately the speakers were fine but believe me they were one step from falling from a 8' tall storage rack while the fork lift guy was handling them as I was waiting there to clear customs. All in all IMO definitely not worth importing a high value component if there is a Indian dealer, unless you are carrying it with you as accompanied baggage. Of-course if it is not available in India it is a different story as it was in my case at that time. YMMV
Cheers,
Sid

Sid, thanks for sharing your experience.

In last 8 years, there is not a single piece of HiFi that I have bought in India (Except the Dali speakers). EVERYTHING has been bought abroad and imported. And nothing has suffered damages. May be it depends on luck and the shipping company as well?

For me it's not a big deal to get a pair for myself. Except that big Harbeths are not really small enough to take as allowed baggage. If buying from abroad, they have to use some kind of shipping arrangement. And the moment you involve a shipping company, the process will have to be followed anyway.

 

[ranjeetrain]

I just had a conversation with Malaysia D/D of Harbeth. Mr Sam Chan himself wasn't available, the call was taken by his sister. She proudly said they are selling Harbeth at the cheapest price in the world. Rightly so

Malaysian price of P3ESR MYR 5200 (Cherry) and MYR 5600 (Rosewood). They don't have Monitor 30.1 in stock however, so didn't discuss its price.

 

[panditji]

I have seen superb copies of the Finite Element racks at Rs. 70,000-80,000 and even seen speakers which looked like the B&W 800 Diamonds...There are some very exotic looking amp. manufacturers like Jungson etc which give you good performance at the first listening but then we do not know if they last as long as the good western brands...

EVERYTHING in Cheen is regulated. You can't move a finger in Cheen without government being aware of it. Everything I am writing here, it being routed through Cheeni servers (and potentially monitored). But that's besides the point.

The market is absolutely not "free-for-all". The industry here is primarily export-oriented. There are manufacturers completely catering to domestic consumers and they are doing some good work. You can buy 90-95% of Apple iPhone/Samsung Note performance at 1/4th the price.

WRT Hifi, there is a kind of small scale industry. Since all the manufacturing is here, it is not impossible for manufacturers to let some stock "slip into" local market for DIYers. You can get a Wilson Sophia copy at 1/4th or less of price. You won't know it's a fake unless someone tells you. It looks the same, feels the same, sounds the same. The only difference would be, it won't be supported by the manufacturer, it may not have a serial number, or may be even it's not called Wilson Sophia, rather than it's called Wilsom Sophia. Now the DIYer can't be sued.

If copyright infringements were a global crime, half the Cheeni industry would be shut down. There is very very little indigenous is being done. Most is ripping the western design. Of course, a by product of such a process is - sometimes they produce winners at a fraction of it's usual cost, which also happen to have a hint of being innovative design.

Once upon a time I heard a 25 watts SET tube amp. Asking price USD 125. It sounded great and I bought it immediately. It knocked the socks off my flagship reciever (more than USD 4k) on the dynamics and mid-range. Later when I reseached, I found that it was a shameless copy of a western design with an SRP of USD 900. I used the phrase shameless copy because except the labels there was nothing different. Same cabinet, same colors, same tubes, same input/outputs. Change the label and it's a USD 900 product.

This is just one example. Cheeni market is full of such "cheap wonders". I actually thought of importing 100 units of the above amp and distributing in Indian market. Imagine a tube amp costing around 10-12k and knocking the socks of SS amps costing 50-80k. That's Cheen for you. If you know how to tap their domestic market you can buy product that represent astonishing value, not even imagined the usual way.

 

[ranjeetrain]

I have seen superb copies of the Finite Element racks at Rs. 70,000-80,000 and even seen speakers which looked like the B&W 800 Diamonds...There are some very exotic looking amp. manufacturers like Jungson etc which give you good performance at the first listening but then we do not know if they last as long as the good western brands...

Yes, quality is usually a problem with these manufacturers. But there are manufacturers with good quality control. Completely domestic brands are supported locally as well. So I am sure they do okay business in domestic market. Internationally, the importer must be capable of dealing with such issues, otherwise it won't be possible to distribute any Cheeni product with confidence.

 

[prajith25]

Would it be worth speaking with Prithvi for a special group discount. He had offered an introductory 10% at the time of the launch. Maybe push him for some more if we have some good numbers !!!! ????

I spoke to Prithvi today morning and a discount on Group Buy is possible based on the numbers. However, with the current economic situation, its not sure how much discount he can provide. So if we have numbers, then we can provide him the exact details and the discount can be worked out.

I can start a new thread to track the number of people interested. However, I would like Prithvi to comment on this plan as a confirmation.

 

[Ash]

Good work Prajith. Knowing the person Prithvi is, I'm sure he will offer us a price that makes business sense to all. Costing is no secret nowadays. I think the next step is to confirm the FMs interested along with details of the models, finishes and delivery locations. Prithvi as well as Harbeth may not have all required speakers in stock so some may have to wait or choose an alternative model.

 

[ranjeetrain]

I spoke to Prithvi today morning and a discount on Group Buy is possible based on the numbers. However, with the current economic situation, its not sure how much discount he can provide. So if we have numbers, then we can provide him the exact details and the discount can be worked out.

I can start a new thread to track the number of people interested. However, I would like Prithvi to comment on this plan as a confirmation.

Good work Prajith. Knowing the person Prithvi is, I'm sure he will offer us a price that makes business sense to all. Costing is no secret nowadays. I think the next step is to confirm the FMs interested along with details of the models, finishes and delivery locations. Prithvi as well as Harbeth may not have all required speakers in stock so some may have to wait or choose an alternative model.

Nice to know about this. Please go ahead and work out the deal and post the outcome.

Once people realize that the prices are reasonable enough I am sure it will create some new demand.

 

[Hassan Khani]

You can check the US retail price of Harbeth speaker from the distributor site. http://www.fidelisav.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=198&Itemid=246
For example the current price of SHL5 is revised upwards of ~$1000 from previous price. This could provide real picture of the current price compared to the Indian price than assuming it is X times higher.

 

[panditji]

I'd like to know the prices as well...would be nice to know the current value of my investment just to feel good...