Tír Na HiFi

Hi folks,

Long time voyeur, first time poster.

Just thought I'd say hello after putting my old office UQ2 on the site for sale.

Are there particular companies/stores people on the site use in the EU for HiFi? I used to use eBay and some UK stores for HiFi, but with the advent of Brexit, the 12% Duty and 23% VAT means purchases from the UK are no longer viable. Outside of Cloney Audio's pre-owned/ex-demo page I don't see many options within Ireland.

I've found https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de has lot's of choice, but always sceptical using a foreign language website especially when substantial sums of money are changing hands.

Are there any reputable EU sites/stores the community recommend?

Welcome aboard!

With the caveat that it's a public site so there's always the danger of scammers, I've bought and sold a few things on audio-markt.de. You can find some good stuff on there.

Thanks, had a look and registered on that site. They don't have what I want at the mo but will check back periodically; thanks for the heads up.

I found good things at https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/ and https://www.thomann.de/ie/index.html

For 2nd hand, the first stop is HifiShark.com of course, and even purchased some equipment from Sweden and Norway that i found there, but its a risk of course since they can easily send me a brick. You have to call the seller and see if he is a crazy audiophile like us, its usually easy to recognize one:)

I also check Croatian ads (translated: https://translate.google.com/translate? ... dio-oprema), so if somebody finds something interesting, I can help with communication!

Thank you for the advice.

I've taken the plunge and agreed to a private sale with a seller in Germany - hopefully I will not have any horror stories to report back - pray for me.

Just a quick line to let you know I received my amplifier from Germany today. Nerve wracking as it was, I did all the due diligence I could, and plumped to having some faith in a fellow audiophile. It has paid dividends, and I've deleted my "wanted" post from the classifieds. Thanks for all your advice/suggestions and support.

That's great, I'm glad it worked out!

Great result! What did you buy?

I know we have all thought it already - we need to get better at buying from within the EU.

Well done, I bought a Jadis valve amp from a hifi shop in Belgium. Bit nerve wracking but all went very smoothly. Ditto for 2 coffee machines and a grinder. Most people selling this type of stuff are very genuine. My most recent purchase was the valve cage for my Jadis amp. Guy was a pleasure to deal with. In the opposite direction I sold my previous Jadis amp to a lady in Poland. It all also went very smoothly. Over a year later I got photo's of the amp in situ with her new speakers.

On the opposite end I enquired about Spendor speakers for sale at what seemed a great price. Some weird Irish ad site. The seller it seemed was in Tipperary so no worries I could just head down to collect them. Made contact and the guy turns out to be in Italy :)

Fran wrote: ↑Wed Jul 14, 2021 9:58 am Great result! What did you buy?

I know we have all thought it already - we need to get better at buying from within the EU.

Naim NAP 250 DR - will be avoiding UK purchases for the foreseeable.