|
|
Post by ragan on Sept 18, 2017 23:33:21 GMT -6
OUCH.
|
|
|
|
Post by spock on Sept 19, 2017 10:09:54 GMT -6
I received an email from the shipping logistics company handling the importation of my pair of Coles 4038's. I had to authorise them to clear the shipment and agree to all charges. I said I wasn't in the habit of agreeing to anything without knowing how much it was going to cost me upfront. In the past I usually received a phonecall from the shipping agent quoting me the figure over the phone. However this time they wanted me to agree to all charges before they had provided a total but when I asked for a figure they just kept repeating I had to agree to all charges still without providing a total. Finally after several phone calls and emails I got the figures... $240 GST (Goods and Services Tax) $120 Government Import Duty $83 Customs Importation Fee $95 Customs Clearance Processing Fee (The fee to process all the above fees!) Total $538.00 That's about $200 more than it would have been about a year ago! View AttachmentWhen you're after something specific, and settle, it's never settled and costs more in the end, when you wind up back at the beginning. How much may we all have saved over the many substitute purchases through time and sold at a loss. Sigh. |
|
|
|
Post by rowmat on Sept 19, 2017 10:42:15 GMT -6
The initial email I received was a somewhat poorly worded and misspelled generic notification asking me to approve all charges and fees.
For instance, "Charges" was spelled "Chrages".
When I rung the logistics company and mentioned their email looked very much like one of the dozen or so scam/spam emails I get each week the woman on the phone laughed told me they get lots of queries from customers questioning whether or not their notifications are genuine or bogus.
|
|
|
|
Post by ragan on Sept 19, 2017 11:09:55 GMT -6
The initial email I received was a somewhat poorly worded and misspelled generic notification asking me to approve all charges and fees. For instance, "Charges" was spelled "Chrages". When I rung the logistics company and mentioned their email looked very much like one of the dozen or so scam/spam emails I get each week the woman on the phone laughed told me they get lots of queries from customers questioning whether or not their notifications are genuine or bogus. Maybe they should grab a quick spellcheck. Might cut down on the number of dubious calls. |
|
|
|
Post by mulmany on Sept 19, 2017 18:42:29 GMT -6
The initial email I received was a somewhat poorly worded and misspelled generic notification asking me to approve all charges and fees. For instance, "Charges" was spelled "Chrages". When I rung the logistics company and mentioned their email looked very much like one of the dozen or so scam/spam emails I get each week the woman on the phone laughed told me they get lots of queries from customers questioning whether or not their notifications are genuine or bogus. It may still be bogus! If you agree to terms before knowing what the terms are then they have legal ground to collect those fees. |
|
|
|
Post by rowmat on Sept 19, 2017 18:52:31 GMT -6
The initial email I received was a somewhat poorly worded and misspelled generic notification asking me to approve all charges and fees. For instance, "Charges" was spelled "Chrages". When I rung the logistics company and mentioned their email looked very much like one of the dozen or so scam/spam emails I get each week the woman on the phone laughed told me they get lots of queries from customers questioning whether or not their notifications are genuine or bogus. It may still be bogus! If you agree to terms before knowing what the terms are then they have legal ground to collect those fees. No it's okay. I managed to speak to the actual guy in Sydney who handled my shipping. I did some research and checked their website details before I agreed to anything. I was expecting a call/email regarding importation fees but the initial email and apparent difficultly in quoting me a figure triggered my bullshit detector for a while. |
|
|
|
Post by spindrift on Sept 19, 2017 18:58:12 GMT -6
Welp, I need to remember my own advice! I just sent my pair off to Clarence Kane again for a re-ribboning today. I need to remember to keep those things at least two feet from large loud drum heads.  |
|
|
|
Post by rowmat on Sept 19, 2017 19:37:22 GMT -6
Welp, I need to remember my own advice! I just sent my pair off to Clarence Kane again for a re-ribboning today. I need to remember to keep those things at least two feet from large loud drum heads. Yikes! If you can feel any air movement at all then it spells danger for the ribbon unless it has plenty of internal screening. I would be using pop filters if I were you. The ribbons in the 4038 are a crazy thin 0.6 microns which is typically 1/3rd the thickness of most current ribbon mics. Holding up a sheet of paper just in front of the mic is a good indicator for checking air movement. We have a 100 year old pump organ I mic with a stereo ribbon mic. Although it's not a super loud instrument it does produce quite a bit of air turbulence out of the rear. The pump is an air compressor after all. Same with Leslie speaker cabinets. They can be a bit like miking up a helicopter rotor! Now you wouldn't go and stick an unprotected ribbon mic anywhere near a helicopter rotor would you?  |
|
|
|
Post by spindrift on Sept 19, 2017 20:13:10 GMT -6
It was a big loosely tuned bass drum that was sat upright and was being played like a tribal drum. While those Coles were working, the sound was GLORIOUS!  . There was no air movement...like air movement from a hole cut in the drum head (there was no hole). It was just A LOT of volume and LF. I'm sure that toasted the ribbon. And yes, the first time I blew them was on a 122 cab! I don't really care though. They sound so good, re-ribboning is just part of the game! |
|
|
|
Post by rowmat on Sept 19, 2017 20:18:54 GMT -6
It was a big loosely tuned bass drum that was sat upright and was being played like a tribal drum. While those Coles were working, the sound was GLORIOUS! . There was no air movement...like air movement from a hole cut in the drum head (there was no hole). It was just A LOT of volume and LF. I'm sure that toasted the ribbon. How far away were the mics? |
|
|
|
Post by spindrift on Sept 19, 2017 21:23:04 GMT -6
6-8"
|
|
|
|
Post by rowmat on Sept 19, 2017 21:29:18 GMT -6
Yikes! That's way too close! 😮 I expected at least 12-18". |
|
|
|
Post by spindrift on Sept 19, 2017 22:32:07 GMT -6
Yup....not thinking things through too well last night. Rushed session, behind schedule....etc.
|
|
|
|
Post by rowmat on Sept 26, 2017 19:11:53 GMT -6
In the middle of a session at the moment so I haven't been able to run them through all our pre's but they are sublimely smooth, yet detailed without sounding like the detail is EQ'ed in.
I have come to dislike many modern ribbons that attempt to emulate the frequency response of condensers by using various tricks to mechanically EQ the ribbon motor. To my ears I find these brighter ribbons sound weird in the highs.
This is often apparent in frequency response plots of these modern ribbons where you can see the high boost of is the result of some type of resonant tuning of the ribbon motor assembly.
I actually hated our AEA N22's until I removed the perforated tube that covered the ribbon motor which effectively turned them into N8's.
I have no doubt the extremely thin 0.6 micron ribbon has much to do with Coles ability to capture the natural transient response.
|
|
|
|
Post by c0rtland on Sept 26, 2017 20:07:18 GMT -6
I fried an old Neumann psu once. I felt so dreadfully stupid after that. I have too many that are mismatched. Some are 220 some are 110... wrong plug in the wrong hole. Smoke. Luckily the voltage didn't make it to the microphone. Phew! Shannon fixed the psu up just fine after that near tragedy...  probably better for it now that I think about it. |
|
|
|
Post by spindrift on Sept 26, 2017 22:19:05 GMT -6
That ugly sinking feeling of a realized mistake  Glad you like the Coles rowmat! |
|
|
|
Post by rowmat on Sept 26, 2017 22:31:40 GMT -6
That ugly sinking feeling of a realized mistake Glad you like the Coles rowmat! I understand why the Coles along with mics like KM84's and a few others are considered desert island mics. |
|
|
|
Post by jazznoise on Sept 27, 2017 13:33:18 GMT -6
Just re the shipping costs I've had this before with FedEx and I paid then their duty but I told them to stick their additional fee up their hole. They threatened debt collectors for about 5 minutes before emailing me to confirm they had decided to waive their fee. What about dealing with import/export is not part of a courier's service?
|
|
ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
Posts: 14,934 
|
Post by ericn on Sept 27, 2017 13:36:07 GMT -6
Just re the shipping costs I've had this before with FedEx and I paid then their duty but I told them to stick their additional fee up their hole. They threatened debt collectors for about 5 minutes before emailing me to confirm they had decided to waive their fee. What about dealing with import/export is not part of a courier's service? The part that says so in the user agreement? |
|
|
|
Post by Mister Chase on Sept 27, 2017 13:40:43 GMT -6
Ouch. Good lord. lol. Love the sticker at the bottom.
However, congrats. The sound of coles 4038s is about my favorite for many overhead drum situations. Such an organic sound and I love how they make cymbals sound. I'd have a pair if I could!
|
|
|
|
Post by jazznoise on Sept 27, 2017 13:41:45 GMT -6
I hadn't specified the courier, ergo a I never made a contract. Besides, they get paid enough to do a job. They just whack stuff like that on because people think they have them by the short and curlies. The workload is predictable - they could build it into the initial fee (undoubtedly the risk of failure to be paid for it is) but they seem to prefer to do it dishonestly.
|
|
|
|
Post by rowmat on Sept 27, 2017 14:44:10 GMT -6
Here in Oz GST (Good and Services Tax) is applied at 10% to any personal imports that exceed $1000 AUD.
So in theory this should add $100 to a shipment with a value of $1000 bringing the total to $1100, shouldn't it?... Er no!
Once GST is deemed payable a bunch of other charges get applied on top of the GST which in many cases can exceed the cost of the GST itself.
So the $1000 shipment typically ends up costing around $1200-$1250.
Also I am hearing that in some cases they are including freight and insurance charges and adding those to calculate the total.
If say you buy an item for $950 AUD and think you're under the $1000 GST threshold you might get a nasty surprise when you discover the $60 freight and insurance costs are added to the $950 bringing the total to $1010 and thus incurring up to another $250 in additional taxes and fees.
Also Paypal and other's inflating the foreign exchange rate in their favor by up to 2% can push the total over the $1000 threshold when in fact it shouldn't have if the exchange rate calculations weren't basically fraudulent.
I don't have an issue with paying the GST under normal conditions it's the all the additional fees and charges that get on my goat!
|
|
|
|
Post by jazznoise on Sept 27, 2017 15:11:42 GMT -6
Exactly, I resent that they're not being upfront with the costs. Don't tell me a logistics and freighting company can't workout costs to a degree of error where they could offset them against each other. It's just a cynical charging system that isn't worth the paper its written on, there's an 'implied contract' they're almost always breaking when they sneak this crap in. Fight it and it goes away.
|
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Oct 10, 2017 20:04:30 GMT -6
Got a pair of these last week for a good price, closet classic condition. I never come across deals.
I kick myself for not getting them sooner. I just did not think they would work so well in the smaller room I'm in now, as other fig 8 mics did not.
They are rather more hifi than I expected as well, and have really good side rejection of the rather loud guitar amp across the room, much more so overall than the single U87 I was using for size beforehand. Also the pair of M160 room mics I had set up are kinda superfluous now in terms of depth, which really surprised me because they were crucial before. I think I will mostly rely on parallel and a touch of Relab.
I set them up in Massenburg and dropped the shell close mics in the drum mix, scooped boxiness at 700hz and bumped a bit at 16k.
Incidentally, I also tried a pair of KM84s, which flattered the cymbals more than the shells, and were a little bleed-happy. Of course they sounded great, so it was hard to decide they were not ideal.
|
|
. There was no air movement...like air movement from a hole cut in the drum head (there was no hole). It was just A LOT of volume and LF. I'm sure that toasted the ribbon.
probably better for it now that I think about it.
