Bringing hi fi equipment into France

I went with the advice of a friend who knew a lot more than I did about such things (and certainly still does).

Sadly unlikely. It’s a package deal and having it invoiced separately would probably affect the guarantee. Also I’d be bringing it all back in one go so it wouldn’t change the total amount.
Thanks for the suggestion though.
What I may do, if I have time, is look at how to officially import it.

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I hope it works out Tim.

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Dont be daft, brought loads back and forth, had the boot open and no one cared, had the car swabbed dozens of times and waved through.
Up to you of course but its France not Russia.

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Audiolab 8000A + a pair of Ruark Talisman II’s - bought in the early 90’s IIRC (the Talisman II was introduced in 1993). Couldn’t afford separate pre+power at the time but thinking of getting one of the compact 50-100W class D amps and finally bi-amping them.

Somewhat underutilised as they only really get used for the TV these days.

I need to get a full new set of phono sockets for the amp - must do that before they become unobtanium, the originals were made from a plastic which went brittle over time and they all disintegrated but they are an unusual pitch so have to be the specific ones for the amp. It wouldn’t hurt to change the electrolytic capacitors either.

The speakers could do with new foam behind the reflex port as well.

One of my clients had the ruarks and they sounded very good. These days I am not sure the ears are good enough to open up a new chapter in hi end gear. I listened to the active speakers AE1’s but really didnt like them despite rave reviews so wont be spending yet. I like the sound on my Bose 901’s although audiophiles hate them the huge soundstage fills the room like nothing else. The only latest kit I did buy is a room correction system that has a calibrated microphone and mini DSP unit and adjusts the frequencies going to speaker to the room to suit acoustics. This is the new thing for improving systems. Havent actually used it yet as more pressing things but getting back to playing music as TV is so much garbage these days.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/175429525807?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=K3rCwFM0TWq&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=6ChYD7PPQQ-&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Yes cap replacement seems a good move for most aging amps.

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It was going so well on that article until they got speaker cables, sadly one of the most contentious areas of music reproduction you can definitely improve a system with the right cable. QED qudos is my go to but on a set of early bose acoustimas I carried out an experiment with the help of my local real hifi shop. Naim cable to the base unit and qudos to the cubes and the sound came so much more alive over bose’s cheap supplied cable. My brother made some carpet python from 3 pieces of CAT5 carefully twisted/platted and the sound was far more detailed and open sounding. None of this cost a fortune unlike some cables but you can hear a big difference.
With a lot of live concerts you are actually hearing mono so stereo is only an effect used at home (discuss)

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It’s somewhat contentious, not sure how the audiophiles view it but in another area of interest of mine - vintage electronic test equipment opinion is very much split over whether to re-cap otherwise working equipment. It is all too easy to cause more damage removing and replacing the old caps and convert working items into non-working ones.

I lean towards only replace if needed (I also have an LCR meter so can check if the capacitor is within specification but that needs the component removing anyway so you might as well replace it at that point).

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Oo, SF has audiophiles.

Anyone want to buy some of my bespoke zero loss speaker cable? (1)

  • Removes all bad noises
  • Adds many good noises
  • Cures erectile dysfunction
  • Frees painful trapped wind

The central conductors are fashioned using Effoffium mined from Titan’s moons and are hand rolled on the thighs of Lithuanian maidens.

Yours for only €325 per metre (2)

(1) Your experience vary
(2) Outward appearance may be identical to Darty’s economy speaker cable.

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You are underselling it - add (at least ) 2 0’s :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

If you think I’m kidding

Also, we can combine IT and audiophoolery if you wish:

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Splitting hairs, if it “removes bad noises” it cannot also be “zero loss”. Also as “bad noises” is subjective I would like a detailed breakdown of its musical taste - it’s no good to me if it thinks AC/DC “Back in Black” is a “bad noise”.

I wouldn’t worry about changing your cable supplier but I’d definitely sack the marketing department.

As long as we have no audiophools we’ll be OK.

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I saw that. They just put a sticker on a cheap D-Link switch!

They’re relying on analog folks not appreciating that 1s and 0s don’t care about millivolts of noise, the cheeky ********!

Come on, they didn’t just put a sticker on it. They put several stickers plus a plastic “crystal” glued to the quartz crystal for the oscillator. :rofl: :rofl::rofl:

I wouldn,t worry,just bring the goods over,thankfully,despite the UK Government,s best efforts to shaft us all and stop us taking and bringing goods with us,nobody at customs seem to be the least bit interested.

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Wow, I’m surprised they didn’t claim that the crystal helped align your chakras to sucker the new age numpties as well.

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ROFL :joy:. Apprently that isnt a complete sentence so I had to write this bit.

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They probably do.

I’m wondering whether they aren’t relying on association with something which has (or had) a tiny hint of plausibility.

In a CD the clock signal is recovered from the data using a phase locked loop and tends to have high jitter (small variations in the timing of the sample data) - it’s possible this could feed through the DAC to give an audible reduction in quality though I’m not sure there is proof of this in any sort of controlled or semi controlled study.

There was a vogue for “re-clocking” the signal at one point IIRC.

I have a feeling that a memory of this, or wanting to exploit a memory of this might be involved in the marketing BS.

Obviously, although there could well be jitter in the DAC on a PC, sticking bits of plastic in an otherwise unmodified cheap network switch is going to have the square root of FA effect on the music.

Thinking about it the other thing which would have a definite effect is audio over “unreliable” UDP streams. In this case if an audio packet does not arrive or does not arrive in time silence is substituted, thus using QoS to prioritise such data *might* make a difference which could be heard, especially on a busy network.

They are not doing any of that though, just compromising the thermal design of the switch - likely to make it less, not more reliable.

Is it my imagination, or did I read somewhere that there was a vogue for making sure the magazines and books in a “listening room” had odd numbers of pages, to improve the sound from the speakers?

I suspect that it is your imagination. The evidence was, in fact, that all publications had to follow the golden ratio in form so that the acoustics of the listening room were not compromised by adverse standing waves.

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