why do great american products not reach us?

Ive been shopping a lot on audiogon of late.

Ive seem some fantastic looking products that I've never seen or heard of in any UK showroom.

Its quite possible Ive missed some of them - but not all.

With the strong pound it suprises me that more US products arent making it across the atlantic.

Take a look at this, and tell me it doesnt look interesting.

http://cls.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/cls.pl?ampstube&1120400480

With import duty, shipping, voltage conversion its still only about 700-800 I reckon.

cool!

 

Did you buy it then? If so, was it because of the VU meters?

 

all of my kit except the pre, phono and power cables are from the us... i think there are plenty of bits that do make it over. oh! and the cartridge is japanese.

 

This looks interesting too:

http://www.manleylabs.com/containerpages/stingray99.html

have seriously considered importing this (it's between this and the PrimLuna Prologue 2)

 

Personally I think that Manley win the award for ugliest Hi-Fi on the planet. But perhaps that's just me

 

Got too many Japs and Brits toys to choose from already. Always think Yanks toys looked like overdosed steroid monsters with blings in general. Never bought any but I might consider some Revel one day.

 

Chris,

it's usually because many of the US manufacturers don't need the UK market - it is tiny compared with their domestic one.

They need to spend a disproportionate amount on establishing brand awareness in a tiny island where certain UK brands have a massive headstart.

There are many worthy brands, Cary, Blue Circle and Focus to name just a few. Many will ship directly to UK often at rates lowr than US retail. This is good news for us IMO and means we don't have to give a large amount of cash to the Mafia bosses such as Branko and Ricardo.

 

I'm surprised that neither Cary nor Manley are sold in the UK. Both are available here (well Cary definitely, I'm pretty sure the Manley is) and our market is much smaller and less significant than the UK market. On a cursory look the Cary stuff appears to be relatively decent value here, no idea if it is any good however.

Stuart.

 

Cary was available over here in the uk - used to be the audiophile club as the distributor - not sure if it still is.

I have to admit I do like the look of that amp - it was vu meters which first made me look at magnum dynalab tuners

 

Some of the best ever kit I've owned is by PS Audio.

Bought a 2CPLUS power amp 2 years ago for silly money and the sound was absolutely sublime, even though it didn't have a high output rating.

At the moment I'm running an old 18 bit PS Audio DAC with external PSU from a Krell transport and it's the best one I've heard to date. Also have a HCA-2 digital power amp and nothing ever wrong foots it. My current pre-amp doesn't have balanced outs which is a major shame because it would sound even better still.

 

Manley is sold over here CONNOISSEUR audio have sold the Stingray in the past and have it listed on the website about £2.2K???
I've owned one superb piece of kit. Wm

 

Hi Dev!

Didnt buy it, no. It looks cool though doesnt it?

Bought something else

 

Stone audio do Cary stuff (amongst others) - and as if by magic:
http://www.stoneaudio.co.uk/stoneaudio/products/details.asp?product=928

1100 quids to you mate.
I've never been there but they did offer me a home dem for a CDP when I was looking around.

 

ooo! well spotted fen dancer.

Not a rip-off Britain price for a change either.

 

Hi WM,

Unfortunately Connoisseur Audio have stopped trading.

 

The Audio Salon in Glasgow run ads for the Manley Steelhead pre/phono stage which they can supply for just over £4K to UK customers.

 

The Steel head is a stunning Phono, I run one in the TT system along with a Diabola

 

I know, but 4,000 just for a phono stage?!

It just seems cloud lala land to me!!

(id love one if it fell in my lap of course)

Chris

 

Not if it's got sharp edges....

 

I'd 'take the pain' if it got me a free manley steelhead ! lol

(especially if I could wear a cricket box)