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

If you buy in Europe you do not get the VAT tax back until you prove that the unit has left the country and sometimes that can be quite the argument. No, the VAT tax is not applicable to Americans but it make European prices seem much higher than they really are. The VAT tax is 20%. The American importer lops off 10% making the American product look cheap even though the importer is making an additional 10% minus whatever the shipping costs are.

Thanks all for the input! Had no idea about the VAT exemption for exports to US. Found some interesting used options and ebay sellers but they are all out of my price range either. Maybe I should do more research especially on the Pear Audio Blue ones. They are basically designed with the same philosophy of Nottingham and the same person involved in development, just a more modern and highend sound variation imo, but not quite the same sonic signature.

@yggy1 I would definitely speak to the distributor for Pear Audio. Michael seemed like a good dude when I traded emails with him. The table seemed quite nice as well.

https://www.pearaudio-analogue.com/contact-dealer-info.html

It's a long story, but I ended up on another path.

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

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