the first time i carried them to morel USA (Boston) they charged $100 but gave me orginal coils. the second time he blew the other tweeter so again i took it to morel USA. now i had 2 tweeters that were close and with replaceable voice coils. the 3rd time he blew both tweeters. this time i got them done in bombay. the makes me realise that i actually had 3 blow out incidentrs. 2 on each tweeter.angshudas said:
my other BIL (sisters hubby) is more careful but more demanding that my wife's brother. i like the challenges. my wife's brother has fried amps and speakers my sister's hubby has had his XO reworked so many times i cant remember. given that they dont live in bombay you can well imgagine what i do on my "vacations" to their place.
I called up that person and the office but they said there are no retail outlets for buying in small quantities _ the usual nonsense. The lady who answered in the office guessed, did not know, that I will have to buy a minimum of 500 pieces.
I will have to check in the local electronics stores to see if they have some in stock.
I will have to check in the local electronics stores to see if they have some in stock.
Never get parts into India through air-mail
I suggest, Vivek, that you never plan to get any critical parts in via air-mail. Either they will never reach, or reach mutilated, or will be caught by Customs in an endless harangue, hoping for bribes. If you get your stuff through by courier, things (in my experience) never got stolen, and even if Customs demands a duty payment, you'll be able to pay the amount and get the item out in one day.
I had Randy Slone send me a packet of items, totalling USD 88.00, by air mail. It took one month to reach Bombay, after which I received a note from Customs, asking for various documents. This process lasted three more months, while they took their own sweet time to realise that (i) I don't do bribes, and (ii) the items are for personal use. Finally, in March, I got my stuff out after paying about Rs.1300 as legal Customs duty and zero bribes.
On other occasions, I've tried to save shipping when ordering from Amazon, and asked for international air mail delivery. Those items have never reached. Period. Couriers have always reached. (For int'l couriers, I only use Fedex/UPS/DHL. Nothing else.)
Hope this helps. I vividly remember the heartburn of being held to ransom by thieving postal workers and Customs clerks. Don't want to wish it on even an enemy.
Tarun
wintermute said:
I suggest, Vivek, that you never plan to get any critical parts in via air-mail. Either they will never reach, or reach mutilated, or will be caught by Customs in an endless harangue, hoping for bribes. If you get your stuff through by courier, things (in my experience) never got stolen, and even if Customs demands a duty payment, you'll be able to pay the amount and get the item out in one day.
I had Randy Slone send me a packet of items, totalling USD 88.00, by air mail. It took one month to reach Bombay, after which I received a note from Customs, asking for various documents. This process lasted three more months, while they took their own sweet time to realise that (i) I don't do bribes, and (ii) the items are for personal use. Finally, in March, I got my stuff out after paying about Rs.1300 as legal Customs duty and zero bribes.
On other occasions, I've tried to save shipping when ordering from Amazon, and asked for international air mail delivery. Those items have never reached. Period. Couriers have always reached. (For int'l couriers, I only use Fedex/UPS/DHL. Nothing else.)
Hope this helps. I vividly remember the heartburn of being held to ransom by thieving postal workers and Customs clerks. Don't want to wish it on even an enemy.
Tarun
Re: Never get parts into India through air-mail
I however have a different experience. I always get components through normal airmail and not through courier. I make sure that the packages are very small. I have been getting components from my UK office for the last 6 years and never had any problems. I get it within 4 to 5 working days, faster than courier. No duty was ever charged.
With courier I had problems, first the delay and then duty is charged randomly. Some times I had to pay duty of over Rs2000 for a single data CD and VHS cassette. Recently we shipped some computer interface cards to our dealers from UK, they were in the original manufacturer's box. The postman just delivered them.
May be it depends from which country it is being shipped. Recently a component was airmailed to me from Hong Kong and it never arrived.
If the component is expensive and the loss would me more damaging, then import by courier. But if you can afford the loss then you can try airmail as you save lot on freight and hassles and the courier company ripping you.
Please do not blame me if your airmail package gets lost, I am just sharing my experience. Tarun's experience has put a doubt in my mind, since the components sent to me are from my head office and I don't have to pay from my pocket, I can risk airmail. Any way they never cost more than couple of Pounds.
Tarun, I am still not sure whether you can pay for CDs and components with your dollar credit card without the RBI coming knocking at your door. Can any one please confirm this.
Angshu
I however have a different experience. I always get components through normal airmail and not through courier. I make sure that the packages are very small. I have been getting components from my UK office for the last 6 years and never had any problems. I get it within 4 to 5 working days, faster than courier. No duty was ever charged.
With courier I had problems, first the delay and then duty is charged randomly. Some times I had to pay duty of over Rs2000 for a single data CD and VHS cassette. Recently we shipped some computer interface cards to our dealers from UK, they were in the original manufacturer's box. The postman just delivered them.
May be it depends from which country it is being shipped. Recently a component was airmailed to me from Hong Kong and it never arrived.
If the component is expensive and the loss would me more damaging, then import by courier. But if you can afford the loss then you can try airmail as you save lot on freight and hassles and the courier company ripping you.
Please do not blame me if your airmail package gets lost, I am just sharing my experience. Tarun's experience has put a doubt in my mind, since the components sent to me are from my head office and I don't have to pay from my pocket, I can risk airmail. Any way they never cost more than couple of Pounds.
Tarun, I am still not sure whether you can pay for CDs and components with your dollar credit card without the RBI coming knocking at your door. Can any one please confirm this.
Angshu
Re: Re: Never get parts into India through air-mail
I guess it's my bad karma. If I promise to treat your exalted self to beer the next time I'm in Delhi, will you lend me some of yours? Good K, I mean.
I totally agree on the randomness of the duty applied by Customs, specially if you bring things in by courier. Our office once ordered a video frame grabber card, whose US price was USD 2,000 (in the days when USD 1.00 = INR 35.00, perhaps ten years ago). DHL brought it in without any duty. We didn't ask how/why. Much more recently, I got a pair of JX92S brought in by courier through Customs; zero duty! The Customs chaps thought this was too small a quantity, therefore obviously non-commercial, so they categorised it as "samples."
I feel that the randomness of duty applied by Customs when goods come in through courier is because the end-recipient gets little chance to negotiate or explain things when goods come in at such a hurry. In the normal course, even a non-bribing kind of guy like me will make multiple visits to Customs House, show different documents, and so on, and slowly get things cleared out. (With the Randy Slone shipment, I luckily had an excellent office assistant to do the running around. He still took three months.)
I think both of us are in agreement on one question: goods have never disappeared if sent by courier.
Fully agree. I'll add one more point to this: if the item can easily be sold in the open market in India, don't send it by ordinary post. Books and magazines fall in this category. In this case, there is no Customs issue; India has never charged Customs duty on books and magazines as far as I know. But these items will get stolen, and there's a thriving market for imported books and magazines sold loose in the open market on pavements of big cities. I remember Byte Magazine in the 1980s would never reach unless you went through some book distributor with a local Indian office.
Remember, each and every order of books from Amazon to me in India sent by ordinary air mail has disappeared. That's a sample size of two orders, but 100% correlation. (Amazon is amazing, by the way. I complained to them and they unhesitantly re-sent the entire contents by courier at their cost. I've been an Amazon worshipper since. Amazon the bookshop, I mean.
)
On this count, I'm quite sure. I've talked to bank personnel, senior managers in SCB (I guess you know SCB was the pioneer in releasing international ccards in India; others followed suit months later), and people who regularly use int'l credit cards.
The consistent explanation I have received is that int'l credit cards can be used wherever you would otherwise have been allowed to use a Form A1 or Form A2 to buy forex for paying for goods/services in forex. With the ccard, you don't fill up the form for your transaction; your ccard issuing bank fills up a consolidated Form A1/A2/whatever with the RBI for all forex transactions done through their bank during that month. (This is what friends in ccard issuing banks have told me.) And the RBI is very clear that all exchange control regulations remain in place, all limits (e.g. BTQ of USD 5,000/head/year) remain applicable, irrespective of int'l ccard or any other mechanism of payment. The int'l ccard is just a mechanism of payment. If the card holder exceeds any limits or violates any other limits or restrictions of FEMA, the card holder, not the issuing bank, is responsible.
I've been using my int'l ccards to order things over the Net (it's magazine subscriptions typically) for at least four years now. My banks have never asked any questions, or even asked for any supporting documentation of any kind. In the initial year of introduction of the scheme of int'l ccards, you were told by issuing banks to get the forex pages of your passport endorsed whenever you used your int'l ccard for forex transactions, either over the Net or during foreign travel. After that first year, even that restriction disappeared.
I'll be interested in knowing any alternate viewpoint. Obviously. But let's do it off-line; this discussion may take the thread off-topic a bit too much otherwise. (I guess most Indian DIYaudio guys may find it interesting, though.)
Tarun
angshudas said:
I guess it's my bad karma. If I promise to treat your exalted self to beer the next time I'm in Delhi, will you lend me some of yours? Good K, I mean.
I totally agree on the randomness of the duty applied by Customs, specially if you bring things in by courier. Our office once ordered a video frame grabber card, whose US price was USD 2,000 (in the days when USD 1.00 = INR 35.00, perhaps ten years ago). DHL brought it in without any duty. We didn't ask how/why. Much more recently, I got a pair of JX92S brought in by courier through Customs; zero duty! The Customs chaps thought this was too small a quantity, therefore obviously non-commercial, so they categorised it as "samples."
I feel that the randomness of duty applied by Customs when goods come in through courier is because the end-recipient gets little chance to negotiate or explain things when goods come in at such a hurry. In the normal course, even a non-bribing kind of guy like me will make multiple visits to Customs House, show different documents, and so on, and slowly get things cleared out. (With the Randy Slone shipment, I luckily had an excellent office assistant to do the running around. He still took three months.)
I think both of us are in agreement on one question: goods have never disappeared if sent by courier.
Fully agree. I'll add one more point to this: if the item can easily be sold in the open market in India, don't send it by ordinary post. Books and magazines fall in this category. In this case, there is no Customs issue; India has never charged Customs duty on books and magazines as far as I know. But these items will get stolen, and there's a thriving market for imported books and magazines sold loose in the open market on pavements of big cities. I remember Byte Magazine in the 1980s would never reach unless you went through some book distributor with a local Indian office.
Remember, each and every order of books from Amazon to me in India sent by ordinary air mail has disappeared. That's a sample size of two orders, but 100% correlation. (Amazon is amazing, by the way. I complained to them and they unhesitantly re-sent the entire contents by courier at their cost. I've been an Amazon worshipper since. Amazon the bookshop, I mean.
)On this count, I'm quite sure. I've talked to bank personnel, senior managers in SCB (I guess you know SCB was the pioneer in releasing international ccards in India; others followed suit months later), and people who regularly use int'l credit cards.
The consistent explanation I have received is that int'l credit cards can be used wherever you would otherwise have been allowed to use a Form A1 or Form A2 to buy forex for paying for goods/services in forex. With the ccard, you don't fill up the form for your transaction; your ccard issuing bank fills up a consolidated Form A1/A2/whatever with the RBI for all forex transactions done through their bank during that month. (This is what friends in ccard issuing banks have told me.) And the RBI is very clear that all exchange control regulations remain in place, all limits (e.g. BTQ of USD 5,000/head/year) remain applicable, irrespective of int'l ccard or any other mechanism of payment. The int'l ccard is just a mechanism of payment. If the card holder exceeds any limits or violates any other limits or restrictions of FEMA, the card holder, not the issuing bank, is responsible.
I've been using my int'l ccards to order things over the Net (it's magazine subscriptions typically) for at least four years now. My banks have never asked any questions, or even asked for any supporting documentation of any kind. In the initial year of introduction of the scheme of int'l ccards, you were told by issuing banks to get the forex pages of your passport endorsed whenever you used your int'l ccard for forex transactions, either over the Net or during foreign travel. After that first year, even that restriction disappeared.
I'll be interested in knowing any alternate viewpoint. Obviously.
But let's do it off-line; this discussion may take the thread off-topic a bit too much otherwise. (I guess most Indian DIYaudio guys may find it interesting, though.)Tarun
Vivek said:
I don't think so. MOV's are used for spike suppression as far as I know. Tend to find them in mains surge protectors and I think telephone line surge protectors.
I think they probably work the opposite of polyswitches actually (in that polyswitches go high resistance when triggered and MOVS effectively go short circuit), ie conduct when voltage gets to high, shunting the excess voltage off to earth or somewhere harmless.
They are a bit like zenner diodes on steroids.
The other thing is that polyswitches trip when current gets too high and MOV's when voltage gets too high.
Regards,
Tony.
Hi
Greetings from Bangalore to all you folks!
Came on to this thread just today and went through all of it with much interest. I have ordered stuff from the US using my credit card and either brought it back myself or through near and dear ones, without any probs.
I have assorted DIY speaker systems here, using SS/Focal/Raven/Audax drivers in my sats and have a couple of 12 inch powered subs. Audax system is HT, the others are for Audio only. Amps are one tube amp(push pull) and a 55wpc AKSA, with a ss preamp. All brought across through checked in baggage as components or kits with zero customs duty. HT is through an Onkyo AV receiver and Panasonic LCD projector. I got a passive radiator for my last sub through airmail and got slammed for duty, but it didnt matter... Man this is an expensive hobby for us kids!!
Hi Navin( if it is Navin Advani), I used to be on the basslist(still am!)
George
Greetings from Bangalore to all you folks!
Came on to this thread just today and went through all of it with much interest. I have ordered stuff from the US using my credit card and either brought it back myself or through near and dear ones, without any probs.
I have assorted DIY speaker systems here, using SS/Focal/Raven/Audax drivers in my sats and have a couple of 12 inch powered subs. Audax system is HT, the others are for Audio only. Amps are one tube amp(push pull) and a 55wpc AKSA, with a ss preamp. All brought across through checked in baggage as components or kits with zero customs duty. HT is through an Onkyo AV receiver and Panasonic LCD projector. I got a passive radiator for my last sub through airmail and got slammed for duty, but it didnt matter... Man this is an expensive hobby for us kids!!
Hi Navin( if it is Navin Advani), I used to be on the basslist(still am!)
George
George,
I too have bought speakers and components as personal baggage and did not have any problems so far. My question is whether as individuals one can import speakers and components by airfreight/courier.
Tarun was lucky he did not have to pay duty. Are there any other lucky DIYers in India.
Angshu
PS. BTW I am a Jamshedpur lad and grew up there. Was in Loyola and played cricket with XL. Presently have inlaws and family there.
I too have bought speakers and components as personal baggage and did not have any problems so far. My question is whether as individuals one can import speakers and components by airfreight/courier.
Tarun was lucky he did not have to pay duty. Are there any other lucky DIYers in India.
Angshu
PS. BTW I am a Jamshedpur lad and grew up there. Was in Loyola and played cricket with XL. Presently have inlaws and family there.
Hi Angshu
I was in Delhi over the weekend, getting together with some XL buddies! Good to connect up with someone from Jamshedpur. I guess the answer to your question is that it depends on the Customs guys who look at the package! A small package has a much better chance of coming through even if high value-provided it is declared properly(low value)
Theoretically a low value item shouldnt bother them, and current import rules allow items below a threshold level if they are gifted to be exempt from duties. I head a software unit which is a 100% export unit(STP unit), it is easier to manage things when the first port of entry is your city rather than , say Bombay, where all Fedex consignments have as their port of entry.
George
I was in Delhi over the weekend, getting together with some XL buddies! Good to connect up with someone from Jamshedpur. I guess the answer to your question is that it depends on the Customs guys who look at the package! A small package has a much better chance of coming through even if high value-provided it is declared properly(low value)
Theoretically a low value item shouldnt bother them, and current import rules allow items below a threshold level if they are gifted to be exempt from duties. I head a software unit which is a 100% export unit(STP unit), it is easier to manage things when the first port of entry is your city rather than , say Bombay, where all Fedex consignments have as their port of entry.
George
gjo said:
Yes it is the same Navin. I left due to the noise. has it improved?
wow you seem to get a lot of drivers through. what i usually do is buy the drivers in Europe or the US and then ship them. In 1987 I had shipped 4 x Focal 8N515 2 x MDT33 (which are now used by my wife's brother) and 2 24W100, 2 x D52af, 2x 21af that is used by my sisters hubby. then in 1996 or so shipped 6 12" Audio Concpets woofers (4 for me) from the US. and 6 SS8546, 2 x Audax 170Z0, 2 x 9900 and 2 x 9500 from Germany. i kept the 9900x 4 x 8546 and Audax.
I got the Vifa TC series drivers and Eminence 8" in India from someone who was trashing them. i got a whole lot enough to build a HT system. 2 x 8", 2 x 6" (2 sheilded), 4 x 4" (sheilded), 4 x 1" (2 sheilded), 2 x 3/4" (sheilded).
the center is a WW T MM with the T being 2 x 3/4 in vertical array and the flangs were modified to get the 2 domes within 2.5" of each other.
my left and right are 8" 6" 1". the rears for now are old JBL Pro III (looks like the Control 1 of today) as my wife considers a 6" 2 way rear as big.
Navin
Greetings again! Noise on the basslist is still there, though qualitatively different. I learnt a lot by being on it, though now it is on the point of diminishing returns for me. I got on to a couple of good deals for some drivers and speaker systems, as well as a plate amp.
I am also interested in knowing more about various ways to get drivers across-I have a 12 inch subwoofer driver lying with my brother in Nashville, TN weighing 23 lbs. I got it on a closeout deal from Lambda Acoustics (my third 12 inch sub, once I figure out how to ferry it across), and dont know how to bring it here. ( I have two teenage sons who play computer games and nowadays the kind of special effects that are generated need a good 12 inch sub, not the wimpy 3 or 4 inch multimedia ones!They use a sound card with 5.1 output on their PC) Hopefully I can bring it on my next trip across, unless someone on this thread can give me a feasible solution. It's not worth couriering across-this is not lightweight high value stuff like, say a Raven ribbon tweeter or a Scanspeak/Focal driver..
My HT speaker system is the Audax HT system designed by Joe D'Appollito, main L-R are MTMs, centre is MWTM, using various Audax shielded drivers-210/170/130 ZO and their tweeters. Not yet completed in the final stages. I got all of this assuming that I sould use a TV, but then picked up a Panasonic LCD projector, so the shielded speakers were overkill.
George
George
Greetings again! Noise on the basslist is still there, though qualitatively different. I learnt a lot by being on it, though now it is on the point of diminishing returns for me. I got on to a couple of good deals for some drivers and speaker systems, as well as a plate amp.
I am also interested in knowing more about various ways to get drivers across-I have a 12 inch subwoofer driver lying with my brother in Nashville, TN weighing 23 lbs. I got it on a closeout deal from Lambda Acoustics (my third 12 inch sub, once I figure out how to ferry it across), and dont know how to bring it here. ( I have two teenage sons who play computer games and nowadays the kind of special effects that are generated need a good 12 inch sub, not the wimpy 3 or 4 inch multimedia ones!They use a sound card with 5.1 output on their PC) Hopefully I can bring it on my next trip across, unless someone on this thread can give me a feasible solution. It's not worth couriering across-this is not lightweight high value stuff like, say a Raven ribbon tweeter or a Scanspeak/Focal driver..
My HT speaker system is the Audax HT system designed by Joe D'Appollito, main L-R are MTMs, centre is MWTM, using various Audax shielded drivers-210/170/130 ZO and their tweeters. Not yet completed in the final stages. I got all of this assuming that I sould use a TV, but then picked up a Panasonic LCD projector, so the shielded speakers were overkill.
George
George
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