Ooops…
Cross referencing @HBIII’s most recent post against mine it would seem that I used the last of my previously mentioned money to take advantage of this issue. I’m sorry man!
A Virus T12 is 1390 at Thomann. So tempting. 1365 at exchange rate. 100 bucks for shipping and import fees. Still saving 500 plus. I NEED MONEY…I could buy 50 of them…sell em for 1750 on reverb…make 13K.
I oftentimes wish i was one of the 5 percenters. It takes money to make money
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- I don’t think Viruses are flying off the shelf, if they were then B&H wouldn’t have stopped selling them.
- My original Virus TI2 Kbd had a defect and had to be returned. I don’t want to think about shipping costs for a 61-key kbd from Seattle to Germany.
- Customers get mad easily. Commerce is hard. The TI software doesn’t work on OSX.
- There is an old Economics tale:
a. Professor and student are walking down a path
b. The student sees a $100 bill lying on the sidewalk, bends down to pick it up
c. Professor grabs the student’s hand just before he touches the bill
d. Professor: “If that was a real $100 bill, someone would have picked it up already”
e. The point of this story is that sometimes the opportunity is real and sometimes it’s fake, and the professor doesn’t know any better than the student.
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Haha, its no fault of your own 
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It’s probably only a matter of time before other manufacturers start doing what Genelec has been doing (presumably through distributor contracts). 
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Live in Canada, recently bought Digitone from Thomann. Came to a little over $800 CAD after shipping. Buying it from a Canadian retailer would be around $1200 after tax. This is a substantial difference.
This has always been the case with some manufacturers. For example, it has always been considerably cheaper to buy Neumann microphones from Thomann than it is to buy them in the US - but Neumann doesn’t allow them to sell to US customers.
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Ah, I wondered how long this had been the case with Genelec. I had tried a few weeks ago with Thomann and they’ve actually changed the message they show (it previously said something more stern like “we are very disappointed with Genelec”).
Interestingly, I just tried putting the 8010As in my cart at Elevator Sound and it hasn’t thrown up any objections so far on the checkout page (although they’re backordered). I wonder if it’s worth a try… Maybe as a smaller retailer, Elevator Sound doesn’t have the same kind of distributor contract as Thomann?
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Are there any customs or import (or whatever they are called) fees when purchasing From Thomann to US?
The fee seems to be the shipping. Like I can not choose anything but UPS express which is very expensive.
Hmm, I wonder how this works with built-in PSUs (like the Genelecs I’m eyeing).
Zooming into a high-res image of the back, it says:
MAINS INPUT
50 / 60 Hz 30 W
100 - 240 V~
Does that mean the PSU automatically detects voltage / AC rate and all I’d need is a US pair of power cables?
[edit] D’oh, this must be what you mean by hardwired. So I imagine this kind of adaptive built-in power supply must be fairly common.
I’ve had to pay import duties.
Yep, it’s all coming back to me now. I visited the UK a few years ago and now that I think about it, my MacBook power supply only needed a plug swapped out, and my Sony camera battery charger only needed a plug adapter, as both were compatible between 50/60Hz and 120/240v. So given that the Genelecs say exactly that on the back, all they should need across the pond is a pair of these.
Yes. You risk paying duties on any items entering the US unless you know the tariff classification and can confirm if it will be exempt or not.
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Ive had to pay it on 2 separate items. I’m not exactly sure what the criteria was that they met for having had to pay import fees, but each time they were about $100 in import fees.
Not a big deal either way, but can we break out the import/export convo to a separate thread and reserve this one for markdowns?
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If the value of the order is over $800 (USD), then you will need to pay ~5% in customs import duty (note, this is the percentage for Synthesizers the percentage varies by instrument type, see the Harmonized Tariff Schedule for specifics https://hts.usitc.gov/view/Chapter%2092?release=2021HTSABasicRev7) plus whatever brokerage charge the carrier adds (for UPS, this is $15.20+tax provided customs did not flag the package for incorrect paperwork/random check etc).
If the order is under $800, then you likely won’t encounter any additional chargers. Buying from Thomann also gets you a 3 year warranty (albeit, it goes back to Germany for any warranty claim).
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Well even with the higher shipping I still got a brand new Model Cycles for less than retail plus tax. Saved around $50. Cheaper than used ones on Reverb as well once you factor in tax.
I bought 8020Ds from Turnlab:
I bought my Genelec sub from milkaudio
Just keep searching if you run into the same message and check back with our lovely international community to verify the shop if it you’re unsure.
So I contacted Elevator Sound to see when they expected the 8010s in stock, and got an unexpected response. I had mentioned I would be ordering from the States, and they quoted me (I hadn’t asked for a quote, assuming the website would be accurate) a significantly higher price in the email than I got at the checkout page on their site (£400 vs £520). Even shipping to the US was only £40 per the site, and the rep didn’t say the quote included shipping.
I’m not quite sure how to respond!