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Why are Nottingham Analogue Studio turntables so expensive in USA?

Hello all

I am in search of a ~$3000 turntable and thought I had finally found the one after months of searching, the Hyperspace from Nottingham Analogue Studio. I liked its slightly dark natural tone with deep bass retrieval, plus good timing and tempo. It can also accommodate two tonearms which makes it future-proof.

The problems I have is the price of this turntable in the USA. The official dealer for this turntable sells it for almost $7000 whereas the UK price is about €3300. Its nearly twice the price and at first I could not believe what I was seeing. Sure, it takes dealers passion and love for audio gears when they set the price, but this seemed utterly outrageous to me. Do you guys agree with this price? performance-wise? Do you recommend any other turntable brands that has the sound I am after?

Before checking out the price for the Hyperspace, I also looked at Small Audio Manufacture turntables from Czech Republic, Well Tempered Amadeus Jr, and Pear Audio Robinhood SE (these share some key ingredients with Nottingham TTs, but seem to have different sound signature, brighter. more resolution, and faster).

yggy1
vinylvalet
897 posts
 

My experience with Pear Audio was not good; not with one but two of their turntables.

Post removed 
yggy1 OP
78 posts
 

@vinylvalet Did you not like the sound? or just overall experience? For me Pear TTs seem to be a little bright, very high resolution like SACD, really solid bass. I like something more musical with just ever so slight hint of darkness. 

@bigslacker Thanks for leaving me the contact info. I'd consider pear's lower price models, but probably try a NTA one first. Sounded very clean and powrful to me, which isn't bad at all. Just a little taste difference. I also realized those prices for NTA turntable without the arm isn't too bad bc the arm is the one set overpriced.

lewm
13,029 posts
 

Now that the UK is out of the EU, is there a disparity in VAT between the two economic entities? I’d bet there is. In Japan, if you present your passport at time of purchase you don’t pay their local sales tax, call it VAT or whatever.

lewm
13,029 posts
 

Just looked it up. VAT in the UK and in EU countries was lowered temporarily in connection with Brexit. It’s between 5 and 10% in most countries, returning to 20% in the UK in April. Now’s the time to buy if you’re a citizen of one of those countries. But VAT can’t figure much in this discussion of UK vs USA prices for the same item.

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