Speaker to carry from US to India

rs007

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Hey Guys,

I am returning to India in 2 months time and was planning to carry a descent home theater components to India. Later I decided to only carry speakers and not subwoofer and AVR as these two would have power incompatibility issues (fair decision?). Moreover sub would be quiet heave to carry on flight.

Can you please suggest which speakers/cables should I buy that can work easily with an AVR/SUB bought from India. What specs/configurations should I watch out for (that may or may not work with sub/AVR in India).

I need it for my living room of 3-bed apartment which is about 15 x 12 or a little bigger
up to $300-$400 for speakers (compact so I can check in)
Need it mostly for movies

Thanks in advance for your advise.

Rohit
 
Rohit,

Few months back I was exactly in your position. My honest suggestion to you is to get some thing for which you will have to pay hefty amounts in India. I bought my AVR, ps3 slim, speakers, cables from there. As you have made your mind up to buy AVR here in India, you might want to get a nice BDP and a good number of Blue Ray discs. I beat myself every time I think of those times for not bringing enough Blue Ray discs and PS3 games. These BR discs are so costly here...and guess what I ended up ordering Batman Returns BR disc on amazon for which I am gonna pay 8 USD for shipping. As you have 2 months time....go for nice blu ray deals on amazon and buy an OPPO BDP or which ever is VFM(our forum gurus will help you there). Regarding speakers....you have plenty of VFM speakers here...wharfs, missions, polks, tannoy are good here(I auditioned only polks towers in magnolia@BB)....but still if you are determined to get a pair of speakers....Axiom is the answer..we have a proud owner of those babies here...PM Skumar and his advice might be of your help.

well that was a poor, humble man's advice.
Naren
 
Thanks for your quick reply. It is good to find someone who dealt with the same situation. On a lot of websites, people do bring questions like I did, but never respond back with the details on how they were able to configure the system with the components bought from US after they reach India.

How did you manage to get around the power/frequency issues?

Can you please provide me your email/contact number so I can get all my questions answered? Greatly appreciate your help.

Thanks,
Rohit
 
Rohit...many brothers here have US bought electronics...and have already shared their voltage converter issues here...no probs..I bought an inexpensive 2000 rupees kundan stepdown transformer here in Hyd for my AVR. Except it gives a hum noise...everything else is great. You can consider branded SDTs from Maxine. My PS3 slim has an inbuilt voltage converter, so no probs with it. I guess that is it.

Please ask your questions regarding configuring your system here, I bet my equipment :p , you will not only find rookie replies like mine but excellent replies from resident gurus of our forum....one only needs a scientific brain to understand what they talk & discuss. Good luck brother.

Naren
 
You need to think about the total budget for your HT setup that you may want to spend, then we could discuss the options. If you have enough budget and are worried about luggage, it is better to bring only a pair of decent BS speakers rather than 5.0 and assemble the rest here.

See if you could find the thread on similar lines, it was a few months ago...
 
I was also intending to get a couple of good BS (Klipsch KB 10 etc.) and not a full 5.0 system. As I mentioned $300-400 for two speakers. If you know of any DVR that would work fine @ 220V please let me know.

How much a descent sub/AVR and rest of the speakers would cost in India? Do you recomment buyingAVR from India or US? I am concerned about performance problem with converters.

Please advise which speakers and cables are good to buy in US? Most importantly, would any speaker work just fine with av AVR/Sub bought in India?

Thanks,
Rohit
 
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Hi,

I think you dont have to worry much about the voltage problems, except the warranty problem. I have been using the following devices bought from US and both of them run at 110v at 60hz: Denon 790, Sony BDP 360. All I did was, I bought a 2K w Maxine voltage convertor from Shah electronics, Chennai, which takes care of both of them. I have not heard any hum or seen any problems so far. So, I would suggest that you get some stuffs like PS3, BDP player like oppo, projector, lamp, AVR, universal remote like Harmony, etc. from US and speakers can be bought from here for a relatively reasonable bargain, again not in comparison with the prices over there.

To answer your question about decent AVR and speakers, it depends on your requirement for music & movies. Anyway, you can get a mid-range AVR and speaker setting for around 75-90K here.

Cheers!
 
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Repeat - what is the budget for your full setup?

$300...$400 for a BS pair will get you the Axiom M2/M3/M22, since you have time you could go for their outlet products also. Again, this or any other reco depends on the total budget.

It will help if you could get a couple of HDMI cables, a couple of decent RCA ICs etc. from monoprice or partsexpress or best of the no-nonsense brigade is bluejeans cable. Check out the threads on speaker wires and BJC.

Voltage conversion will be the least of your problems in India, inflated cost of AVRs will be the main issue.

Also, most of the airlines have now reduced the baggage allowance from USA to 2*50lbs and increased the price for extra baggage. Check that out as well.
 
Thanks guys ! Really appreciate your replies.

If voltage conversion is not going to be a problem, I would consider buying AVR and Blue ray player too.

Can you please suggest which AVR should I buy, am not looking for an expensive one?

If I buy Sone BDP s360 or s560, would it play indian DVDs? Can it be made region free or it will only play US discs?

Thanks,
Rohit
 
Contrary to what seems popular opinion, voltage conversion is a risk. It poses distinct problems. If you are very fussed about music, then audio quality is seriously compromised when using voltage converters.

Plus there is also the huge risk that you might plug in the equipment directly into the wall socket without the converter. Our home actually has these modern electrical outlets which lets you connect both US and Indian plugs - of course all at the same voltage.

The moment you connect a US equipment here to the wall socket directly, be prepared to hear a crash bang and smell the smoke of burning electronics. This has happened three times with my XBOX! The XBOX being very popular in my family, each time an unsuspecting friend or family member was a culprit. Just so you know.

All this is not to say that you cannot get equipment from the USA. Just to let you know the pitfalls so that you can make an informed decision.
 
To add to what guys are saying,

Speakers - Simplest to buy, non-active so no power conversion issues. However, needs to be well packed so that there is no damage
Good speakers in the 300-400 USD bookshelves would be a big list but you may find it difficult to audition (unless staying for long).
So if they are available in India, audition here, choose the model and then buy the US eqvt.

AVR - Huge price differences, so make it attractive, for example, amazon was selling Yamaha 3800 for a 1000 USD which would be close to 2 lakhs in India. But voltage conversions are an issue, you will need to spend 2-5k on a good quality convertor , weight might be an issue.

BDP - Oppo is the simplest as it can be modded to play BD and DVD for all regions,and has built-in voltage convertors if you can afford the price (500 USD)
The rest, can be modded using software but would not remain permanent (see threads in the player section).
 
If your buying speakers in u.s a vfm option is to buy internet direct look at speakers from axiom, emotiva, emp tek (internet direct frachise of rbh), aperion audio
 
Hi
My advice is carry only the AV receiver not the speakers since the weight factor & customs ,but take care since in US it operates at 110V u need to have a Stepup transformer & take care about the warrenty in India as per my exp is concerned carry Denon since they have the perfect organized service centers the PROFX people.
 
Hi
My advice is carry only the AV receiver not the speakers since the weight factor & customs ,but take care since in US it operates at 110V u need to have a Stepup transformer & take care about the warrenty in India as per my exp is concerned carry Denon since they have the perfect organized service centers the PROFX people.In case ur Using Projectors carry them from USA its worth.
 
Whatever you buy from US, also consider the weight of that thing because the difference you save might not be much after paying the freight and customs on it, add to it the cost of step down convertor,as Its clear from your earlier threads that you are not looking for expensive AVR or electronics then in that case there won't be a huge difference between the costs of buying in US and India, also taking into account that there is no warranty to take care of your stuff if anything goes wrong.
IMO you should go for a BDP but here look for a player which could play both PAL and NTSC and it should be easily modable to work with Indian Disks. If you could stretch your budget to 500$ for it then Oppo BDP83 would be the best bet for you as it has a dual voltage capability and supports both PAL and NTSC standards.
For AVR or Pre power combo Emotiva from Emotiva Audio: Audiophile Quality Multi Channel Amplifiers, Stereo Preamplifiers, Audio/Video Processors, and Award Winning Speaker Systems At Direct Prices has some really great stuff with them at really reasonable prices. On these even if you end up paying extra baggage or customs then too you won't find similar quality stuff at that prices in India. Best advantage with Emotiva gear is that they too support dual voltage automatically.
For speakers its always recommended to buy a matching pair which goes well with the electronics you intend to purchase.
 
Hi
My advice is carry only the AV receiver not the speakers since the weight factor & customs ,but take care since in US it operates at 110V u need to have a Stepup transformer & take care about the warrenty in India as per my exp is concerned carry Denon since they have the perfect organized service centers the PROFX people.In case ur Using Projectors carry them from USA its worth.

Hi Mahesh,

But I have heard from other members that Profx does not service goods that were bought outside India, even a paid service.

Cheers!
 
Rohit

I think you need to keep both weight and volume considerations in mind. Having brought a lot of stuff over the years from the US, I know what I'm talking about:eek:hyeah:

Speakers- try to audition some if you can, to find out what suits you best. Energy is a brand that has speakers of different sizes. Personally I am a DIY guy, so I bought drivers from there and built my own enclosures-but it did need a lot of effort to bring 10 drivers across.

AVR-def worth looking at getting one from there, given the price diff. Onkyo will provide you ASS for equipment bought anywhere-remember what you really need is long term ASS not just within the warranty period.

I suppose you are aware of the 25K duty free limit, after that exemption, depending on the mood of the customs guy, duty may start to kick in.

Cheers

George
 
Hi Mahesh,

But I have heard from other members that Profx does not service goods that were bought outside India, even a paid service.

Cheers!

Dear Venkatesh i do not know about other service centre but the service at bangalore & Hyderabad i heard its good.The Service for Outside products are done,I've got my projector lamp replaced.
 
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