Cheap shopping options for musical equipment

niallk

I'm buying some more new equipment soon and I'm looking for American websites because of the Weak Dollar. Up until now thomann.de has been my supplier but I recently compared prices with musiciansfriend.com on a stage piano:
thomann €970
musiciansfriend $999 = €642.45
This is subject to a 21% import duty i believe which would make it €777
which is a 20% saving. (but if you can convince the company to mark the package at a lower price this would decrease.)
Has anyone got any experience or tips for buying from america?
musiciansfriend is the only store I can find so far, any one know any others?

PaulBrewer

niallk wrote: »

I'm buying some more new equipment soon and I'm looking for American websites because of the Weak Dollar. Up until now thomann.de has been my supplier but I recently compared prices with musiciansfriend.com on a stage piano:
thomann €970
musiciansfriend $999 = €642.45
This is subject to a 21% import duty i believe which would make it €777
which is a 20% saving. (but if you can convince the company to mark the package at a lower price this would decrease.)
Has anyone got any experience or tips for buying from america?
musiciansfriend is the only store I can find so far, any one know any others?

Import Duty is usually around 4.5%. It's VAT that is 21%, which would be due too.

Have you checked shipping costs? Not insignificant on a Stage Piano I would think.

US keyboards would also have 110 volt power requirements too.

Run_to_da_hills

One bad thing about buying from the USA is warranty issues, unless you are buying equipment that holds international warranties you could be in trouble if it fails, even buying from the UK can be a pain in the ass as I have learned before. Most Irish main dealers will not touch any parallel products that are bought overseas.

niallk

PaulBrewer wrote: »

Import Duty is usually around 4.5%. It's VAT that is 21%, which would be due too.

Have you checked shipping costs? Not insignificant on a Stage Piano I would think.

US keyboards would also have 110 volt power requirements too.

I am still at the exploratory stage and am looking for advice and experience.
Stage piano was an example.
As for the 110 volt thing, this is just a matter of changing power supply lead, contrary to popular belief. (You wouldn't believe some of the mammoth power adaptors I've seen people use unneccessarily.)

unclebill98

niallk wrote: »

I am still at the exploratory stage and am looking for advice and experience.
Stage piano was an example.
As for the 110 volt thing, this is just a matter of changing power supply lead, contrary to popular belief. (You wouldn't believe some of the mammoth power adaptors I've seen people use unneccessarily.)

Are you sure about the power thing? Cause most of the units i but have switchable power supplies, which means just swapping the power cord, but for units without this its not that simple!

As for warranty issues, the likely hood is that you will have to send it back to the USA for any repairs your claiming under the warranty, which for a saving of a few hundred might not be a good idea. Cause after you ship it back etc. If the savings was thousands then maybe.

PaulBrewer

niallk wrote: »

I am still at the exploratory stage and am looking for advice and experience.
Stage piano was an example.
As for the 110 volt thing, this is just a matter of changing power supply lead, contrary to popular belief. (You wouldn't believe some of the mammoth power adaptors I've seen people use unneccessarily.)

This isn't necessarily the case.

Some unit these days do have 'Voltage sensing' power supplies so you can plug in 110v and 220v. Some have switches where you can switch between the 2. ( Dav will confirm this!)

Some have specific power requirements that only a Manufacturers power supply will work with it which leaves you with 2 sub options, a 220v to 110v converter or source the correct power supply locally.

As a products distributor we're allowed to return units purchased from us for repair , however as a rule most suppliers insist it comes back to them via the route it came i.e. through the US dealer, if there is a problem.

frobisher

There are some great bargains to be had out there alright. Although there are also local suppliers eager to get your business so give them a shot at matching prices before whipping out your flexible friend.

I once saved money by flying to NYC and buying some gear. Crazy. But guess what? The main piece of kit I bought didn't f**king work, not a warranty issue but a piece of kit that was abandoned by manufacturer who left behind the mLAN protocol with all their fingers and hate mail directly re-routed towards Yamaha. Although it did all end happily, it is worth noting what the potential difficulties of buying abroad can be.