Moving vinyl and components overseas

If you can afford it, do an intensive 1-on-1 class. Mine lasted 4 weeks, and you spend 1-1.5 hours both morning and afternoon with your teacher (that's the 1-on-1, so no place to hide! ), and the rest of the morning and afternoon in a language lab. working through exercises with a teacher randomly listening in, and correcting/helping as needed. English was banned!! In the nights there was plenty of homework.

It was exhausting, and there were times when I felt that it would be nice to have some time to reflect on what I had learned, but the idea seems to be to saturate you, and then the real learning comes afterwards. I did several months (one night a week) of group conversation classes (all ex-pats, various nationalities, except the teacher). This helped to see what other problems people were having with the language. I also had a few colleagues and good friends who were prepared to take the time to help me along. I took out a subscription to my local newspaper, and watched the news daily (Why? Because (a) you may already know or can determine the stories, and (b) the newscasters tend to talk in clear, correct language). The hardest things initially were boisterous group conversations (so work team meetings were easy to follow while the boss was running through the agenda items, but as soon as a group conversation happened with several people talking at once, often not in complete, grammatical sentences, then things got tougher) and talking in noisy environments like bars (because you lack the vocabulary to insert the bits you can't hear). Listening to pop/rock radio was a mess, because of the slang, idioms, etc. Getting that, and jokes, takes time! The more you put in, the more you will get out.

 

That's exactly what I'm planning to do. Did you take your class in the States or elsewhere? What was the company name?

I'm also thinking about getting a roommate for the first 6 months. Hoping to trade free room & board and some pay for someone to tutor me and help translate until I get more comfortable.

 

I took the class after I had moved to The Netherlands (I was working at Philips Research at the time).

This is the company: https://www.ste.nl/index.php?&set_language=Engels# Obviously, it will be of no help to you, but their site may give you ideas about what to look for in another language school (either here or in your target country). I did the Individual Training followed by Group Discussion classes.

The Individual Training classes involved working with something akin to children's picture books. We would work through the images, simple things like "Jack has a ball."; "Jack gives the ball to Tim."; etc. You start with the tutor saying the phrase, then you copy, focusing on pronunciation. The idea is to get you speaking and thinking in the language, not worrying about grammatical rules (at least not initially). In the language lab you do exercises based on what you have learned, so things like convert a sentence into its negative form, convert a statement into a question, etc., and, as your knowledge grows, change tenses, etc. It was very different to the more formal language training I had done during my schooling in the UK, which started with all the grammar rules.

The hard thing about learning a language as an adult is accepting that you cannot run before you can walk. You have to learn to keep things simple initially. You have to forget your big vocabulary in your native language, because you can't talk in a complex fashion until you have learned sufficient vocabulary and rules. You also have to be prepared to (a) make mistakes, and (b) have a laugh at yourself when you do. One of the hardest things about learning Dutch was that virtually all the Dutch are pretty fluent in English, and some would just say, "Oh, just say it in English!" if I was struggling to get my message out. You have to resist that, and persevere, and, before you know it, you will be thinking in the language. That is the thing that many get wrong, they think in their own language and try to translate on the fly, but it doesn't really work. At some point, you find yourself automatically switching, and then you just converse like you would in your native language.

 

I would be very cautious about running any business in a non English speaking country where you have no personal or family ties there to rely on as well as not being fluent in the language.

 

I disagree....during my stay in the Dominican Republic, I was amazed at the number of business run by French, Italian, Russian, Canadian amd American with no experience with the Spanish language. I was surprise that most of the businesses at most beaches were run by European.

Regards,
Tony

 

Well the Caribbean is a different ball of wax compared to the mainland of Central America and South America. I am not saying it can't be done but I would be very careful and try to find someone in country (expat?) that can advise competently.

 

You got some good points, and for sure, Brian will require some level of Spanish. But if his heart is in it, he will do good. Bogota, which I believe is the location he's relocating, if I'm not mistaken, is also a metropolitan area with a good number of people that speak English.

Peace,
Tony

 

Congratulations Brian. It will be a great adventure. I recently saw a show that talked about how that area of Columbia has gone from dangerous in the 80's to a safe, vibrant area over the last few decades. Looks like a beautiful place.

BTW, I'd be happy to babysit that turntable for you!

 

I only have about 300 albums. But I could get it down to 100 keepers if I just had to. My gear I love. But again if I had to, I could sell it all and buy one very durable easy to repair table and small bookshelfs. I could scale way back to go on an adventure. I wouldn't think of them a anything more than tools at that point. That's what I'd do though. I could not go back to digital.

 

Japanese vinyl cafes are fun. I've been thinking about doing something like that here. But, so many coffee shops, it's a lot of competition even with the vinyl aspect. Not sure how it would go in Colombia, I could ask a friend what she thinks though (she's Colombian, but not an audiophile...)

You should probably research and see what the expat community is like in the various cities. May be helpful to have some other ex-pat business owners etc. around that you could ask questions of.

 

20 years ago I shipped half a container to the UK for about US$2k, but my new employer paid for it.

 

There is something that you really need to consider.

Customs duties, most everywhere in S. America are ridiculously expensive!

And if you plan to move to different countries, you will pay custom duties with each successive move.

A friend of mine is moving back to S. Africa. I told him I will give him a Pair of A7's, as I have three pairs.

The pair that I was going to give him is all original Altec components.

He checked with customs and they told him the duty would be $12,000 for the pair. Keeping in mind that they are 30-40 year old painted plywood boxes.

You might want to have Waxfreek weigh in on this, since he deals with these issues quite a bit.

 

Yeah, my Colombian friend has warned me that customs there is quite arbitrary with import duty fees, especially for electronics. That is a big reason I may end up selling my turntable after all.

Vinyl, on the other hand, probably wouldn't raise the same $$ concerns, but there is a good chance (according to her) that customs could try to charge quite a bit or very little at all. Not knowing is what would concern me the most.

 

There was a conversation a while back on the subject. I recall a post referencing a move to Europe, where they will allow only 10-CD's, and the tariff was quite high, bringing in additional used CD's.

Not knowing, is a real world concern, since, as you indicate, it could be very little or it could be really stupid expensive!

Suggest, that you might start a separate thread, asking for some input from SHF members who have brought records and audio related items into S. American countries.

That might give you an idea on what you are facing. Waxfreak will tell you how expensive older, used pieces of equipment are, where he lives, due to import duties. Conversing with people who live there may be very helpful and you might pick up some excellent suggestions.

Old, used gear down there is typically three times, what you buy the same thing for in the US. And that is for ordinary components like receivers and Klipsch speakers.

If you have something, like your TT, that obviously looks expensive, it is likely that the duty they will charge you, might be the same or more as your original cost.

The same would hold true for your other non audio art related items. Are you planning on taking your terra cotta with you? That could really cause some issues.

 

No idea where the notion that you could only import 10 CDs into Europe came from, but, Brian, you may want to look for more information like this:

http://webportal.atlasintl.com/Customs Docs/colombia.pdf

Europe, the US, Canada and some others do not charge any duty in importing your personal belongings, so it would be a good idea to contact some international shippers to find out the situation for each country you are considering.

 

No, I'm selling pretty much everything else. I don't really care about any of my non-HiFi "stuff", so no biggie.

That terra-cotta warrior I have is going to be a beast to move for whoever has to do it. If it doesn't sell, I will just donate it to the house for the new owners to deal with. Moving anything out of my house is a huge pain because the house is built down a hill from the driveway entrance and has some pretty insane stairs to climb to get back to the top.

 

Thanks for sharing. Yikes! Definitely selling the turntable now!

Here's the relevant passage:

Customs may ask for a Bank Guarantee that the goods will not be sold for one year after importation
All shipments except diplomatic shipments must pay duty, import tax, sales tax (VAT) and any warehouse fees which are charged to the client’s account. Duties are 20% and VAT of 16% on CIF assessed value of the household goods.

 

I do wonder what would happen if I brought some stuff in as my baggage. Might be a way around this if I wanted to bring tonearm or cartridge, but wouldn't work for my table which has a huge wooden crate for shipping.

 

It's kind of funny, but I often consider and plan around how my enjoyment of music would be impacted by radical lifestyle changes. I think one of the ways I insulate myself from this is keeping all of my digital music in the cloud (not just subscription services, my actual rips and paid downloads).

I also have a modest office system (Rega DAC, Brio-R, Wharfdale Dentons) that is all small enough and portable that I could, well, take it to Columbia if I had to, but also less drastic examples of suddenly finding myself living in a 1bd apartment, etc.

Vinyl is the real kicker here. Turntables aren't very portable, and large record collections definitely aren't. It's also hard to reproduce a record collection once you've had to part with it.

 

So what you do is take your tonearm, place it in a plastic bottle, and slip it into your shampoo bottle. A buddy of mine says it works every time.

 

Cheaper & easier to bring an iPod instead off your TT

Seriously though, good luck with your dilemma and your move!

 

'Bout time someone is smuggling something INTO Colombia from America, eh?

 

He can take the tonearm without any problem. Most of the time the customs guys are looking for electronics like TV, radios, and other stuff more in this line. They would have no idea what a tonearm is.

Regards,
Tony

 

I suggest he brings nothing, build a modest equipment with used locally-bought stuff (amps, speakers and maybe a DAC and play FLAC files from his notebook. Because local customs will steal or damage his stuff, or charge him unbelievably high taxes. For anything Colombian-related, contact poster @Hail Vinyl ! , a local there.

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/members/hail-vinyl.40870/

 

Just become a diplomat!!!!!!