Tír Na HiFi

I'm selling my preamp, and the buyer is in Slovenia. Any thoughts on the best company to use for shipping it?

you'd get a longer list of who not to use
and see if theres anyone left

That's what I'm afraid of...

Request buyer to pick up and cut a deal. Otherwise use the courier company that shipped it to you (unless it arrived in poor shape).

iDad

Mine came from Belgium by insured UPS.Expensive but it got there in one piece. Insurance will give peace of mind.
Is that the lurvely graaf amp you have for 5 mins?

The key here is not so only the courier, but bulletproof packing..... think of it being dropped from 1m high onto concrete floor.

Double boxed, with foam/bubble wrap between each box. The actual pre also well packed inside.

After that my preference would be for a company that carries it from door to door - ie it doesn't change hands between 3 different companies between here and there.

Slovenia not in the EU wither I think, so watch out for customs etc (from the buyers POV)


Fran

Yeah, that's the amp. It's just not happening for me.

I think it arrived via Interparcel, all was grand, but as Fran says it was very well packed. Original box and foam inlays surrounded by larger box with packing chips, etc. I still have all of that, so it will move on the same way.

Apparently Slovenia joined the EU sometime in the noughties. No, I didn't know that either!

apologies to our Slovenian friends for my ignorance!


Pity about the pre. Were you not happy with the sonics?

Yeah, I just never got to a place where I really liked how it sounded. Ultimately, I wanted a pre for some very particular things (control, refinement, space, depth) and while I got some of these, the major effect of the pre was to bring the midrange forward, and I didn't really like it. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't for me.

General consensus was that the valves (not original) weren't a good match for the pre, and in fairness I think that's probably accurate enough, but the Russian valves I put in brought their own issues (glassiness, harshness, lack of bass). They might need more time to come on song, but again the word on the street was that I should pay up and get decent NOS valves, and that they'd need to be perfectly matched, ultra-silent, blah blah blah. Basically, it was going to be frustrating and expensive.

One day recently I realised that deep down I just wanted to get back to the sound I had before the pre arrived. So the answer was simple: sell the pre, trouser a couple of grand, and get on with my life!

It didn't help that this pre arrived just as I was getting superb sound anyway, and the timing also coincided with problems with my power amps requiring more outlay. I just don't have the energy to coax the best out of it.