Bonjour wisnon, je m'excuse. I am getting rusty. Your second paragraph should give me the hint that you're francophone ("Cant be a Swiss sound"), the germanophone would have translated something like There is no (Es gibt kein...)
I seem to prefer the (Swiss) French speaking part for their gear (love the Nagra preamps).
Near Geneva sounds terrific: Swiss level income, French level spending just across the closeby border :-)
On top of that, jumping on a cheap EasyJet flight to various destinations...c'est la vie en rose...
Back to audio gear: not familiar with import duties for electronics but isn't it advantageous for the Swiss to import (voltage changed) gear from the US when the USD was low in most of 2011 and end Jan of this year? Now near pari but during lows around 0.8 CHF for a buck.
I bet the reseller system there soaks up some of the currency advantage. Conversely Swiss gear is likely to keep on rising in price on the long run and their niche market in the US pertains to keep their value, lest a new disruptive technology swamps the market.
Not Swiss (sorry for being on a tangent) but definitely engineered by a music lover is the German Schnerzinger that AudioArts also distributes for the US in case you pay a visit there for the Swiss goodies. Their isolation product is IME top notch, comes as expected with a price.
I seem to prefer the (Swiss) French speaking part for their gear (love the Nagra preamps).
Near Geneva sounds terrific: Swiss level income, French level spending just across the closeby border :-)
On top of that, jumping on a cheap EasyJet flight to various destinations...c'est la vie en rose...
Back to audio gear: not familiar with import duties for electronics but isn't it advantageous for the Swiss to import (voltage changed) gear from the US when the USD was low in most of 2011 and end Jan of this year? Now near pari but during lows around 0.8 CHF for a buck.
I bet the reseller system there soaks up some of the currency advantage. Conversely Swiss gear is likely to keep on rising in price on the long run and their niche market in the US pertains to keep their value, lest a new disruptive technology swamps the market.
Not Swiss (sorry for being on a tangent) but definitely engineered by a music lover is the German Schnerzinger that AudioArts also distributes for the US in case you pay a visit there for the Swiss goodies. Their isolation product is IME top notch, comes as expected with a price.