Greetings from Kenya

[occamsrazor]

Hi,

Living here in Kenya with a somewhat antiquated hifi system that's travelled around the world for the last decade...

Audiolab 8000A: One decent input left, all the plastic on the other terminals is cracking.
Blueroom Minipod speakers: One woofer semi-blown, patched last night with a bicycle tyre repair kit - I kid you not :-) currently working on a replacement.
Rega CD player (unused these days)
Multiple Airport Express devices (2 x 1st gen, 1 x 3rd gen)
Various Macs

Came to this forum looking for info to upgrade to a new amplifier and DAC for streaming Airplay to....

Cheers...

[Barry]

Welcome to AoS Benjamin,

That's some travel-worn gear you have there! :lol: How easy is it to buy audio gear in Kenya? Is there much of a range available in, say, Nairobi?

What are your tastes in music?

Welcome again - enjoy the Forum.

[walpurgis]

Hi Benjamin, welcome from me too.

Sounds like you have some interesting Hi-Fi problems.


Enjoy AOS,
Geoff.

[Eagle owl]

Hello and welcome Benjamin.

Geoff. :wave:

[occamsrazor]

Hi,

Thanks for the welcome...


That's some travel-worn gear you have there! :lol: How easy is it to buy audio gear in Kenya? Is there much of a range available in, say, Nairobi?

Yeah it is a bit of a struggle getting tech here. Locally there are some Japanese brands available (Pioneer, Sony) but it's all low-end 5.1 home cinema stuff. People only really care about home cinema here, not hi-fi. There is a Bose shop here with a bunch of stuff, but I've never really been a Bose fan. Prices for anything above low-end, if you could find it, are about double that of UK etc. The bigger difficulty is to get anything from UK/Europe generally requires someone to bring it by plane to me, which is OK for small stuff but for larger stuff like speakers, amps etc, poses a problem. Shipping is sometimes possible, but expensive and problematic. That's why I'm looking to upgrade with shoebox size components from UK/Europe. Still not sure how I'll get some new speakers though.


What are your tastes in music?

Mostly either:
a) British 1980s/1990s - Joy Division, Smiths, Pulp, Manics, Acid house, Ambient, Britpop. Also Jack Johnson, Alexi Murdoch.
b) Hippie 1960s/1970s - Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Dylan, Hendrix etc.
c) African - I have a large collection of African music mostly from West Africa, especially 1960s/70s Highlife from Ghana/Benin and early 1970s Nigerian funk, which I listen to a lot.

Cheers!

[jollyfix]

Hi Ben, welcome to AOS. I too listen to loads of west African stuff from that era, and afrobeat/highlife from Nigeria. K Frimpong was on the turntable last night.

[StanleyB]

Hi Benjamin, welcome to Aos from me as well.


The bigger difficulty is to get anything from UK/Europe generally requires someone to bring it by plane to me, which is OK for small stuff but for larger stuff like speakers, amps etc, poses a problem. Shipping is sometimes possible, but expensive and problematic. That's why I'm looking to upgrade with shoebox size components from UK/Europe.

I am not suggesting that you should buy anything from me without cause or reason. But if you do end up ordering one of my item, I'll ship it to you as long as you are an AoS member. I have had to ship to forum members as far afield as the Falkland island, and it got there in 5 days!!! One order going out to SA on Monday, and possibly Brunei sometime next week.

Have you thought of setting up a small hifi business for expats? There is a customer of mine who runs something like that from his garage in Australia. He is doing extremely well from it, considering how many expats now live in AU.

[occamsrazor]

I am not suggesting that you should buy anything from me without cause or reason. But if you do end up ordering one of my item, I'll ship it to you as long as you are an AoS member. I have had to ship to forum members as far afield as the Falkland island, and it got there in 5 days!!! One order going out to SA on Monday, and possibly Brunei sometime next week.

Thanks, appreciate the offer, but the issue is damage and/or ridiculous customs charges on arrival here when shipping direct. I buy a lot of classifieds and online sales stuff from UK off some other forums and usually have shipped to relatives in UK/Europe then find a way to get it here. Alternatively there are UK-based freight forwarders who do a decent job, but you're paying per-kg as airfreight - not a big deal for a DAC, but for speakers, amps etc.


Hi Ben, welcome to AOS. I too listen to loads of west African stuff from that era, and afrobeat/highlife from Nigeria. K Frimpong was on the turntable last night.

Have you heard the "Nigeria 70 (http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12881-nigeria-70-the-definitive-story-of-1970s-funky-lagos/)" compilation series, some great stuff there that I listen to a lot. Also I'm a big fan of Charlotte Dada, e.g. her cover (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7-JrLuAaFY) of the Beatles’ Don't Let Me Down. She has an amazing voice but very hard to find more than a couple tracks of hers.

[CageyH]

Hi Ben, welcome to AOS.

I recently bought some mono block power amps, that are shoe boxed size.
They sound awesome, and are pretty lightweight. Amps should not be a problem.

I you are handy at wood working, have a look at the frugal horns. You could source the wood locally, and would just need to buy the drivers.

[jollyfix]

Have you heard the "Nigeria 70 (http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12881-nigeria-70-the-definitive-story-of-1970s-funky-lagos/)" compilation series, some great stuff there that I listen to a lot.

Yes bought it when it came out, and yes there are some great tracks, but not the best 'comp' imho. Soundway have some of the best 'comps' out there, the Ghana stuff is amazing + can get on vinyl also.:)
http://www.soundwayrecords.com/catalogue

[occamsrazor]

Soundway have some of the best 'comps' out there, the Ghana stuff is amazing + can get on vinyl also.:)
http://www.soundwayrecords.com/catalogue

Yeah Soundway are amazing, I have some of their stuff, but looking at the site it looks like i'm missing a lot...

[jollyfix]

playing this on vinyl to help wake up this morn, more camaroon than Ghana.
iBOgak1Qjp8

[occamsrazor]

Ha, you lot are too funny :-) If I take your advice before I know it I'll be chopping down trees to harvest for wood to build speakers to sell at my newly-opened hi-fi shop :-)
Seriously, some nice ideas, but I'm looking for a more boring mainstream solution I'm afraid...

I've realised that living abroad etc physical source material (CDs, vinyl) is too much of a hassle and I'm exclusively digital. The aluminium layer in most of my CDs got corroded during two years in a humid place, so I don't trust it anymore and have amassed a large MP3 collection. Now I'm starting to get FLAC, converted to ALAC because I'm pretty much all-Apple. I have 2 mac mini servers, Macbook Pros, iPhones, and two QNAP NAS with a lot of storage and backups, so I am fairly sorted for sources. For radio I would use internet streams anyway.

So it occurs to me that these days I don't need to invest in quality CD player/tuner/tape deck/turntable and instead should put my money in solely the DAC, amplifier, and speaker aspects. I do like the idea of valve amps but I worry a bit about having fragile glass components.

I would need something not too big and heavy (unfortunately), but on the amplifier and DAC side I've been looking at these options:

For combined units: the new Quad Vena (http://totallywired.co.nz/quad_vena.html) (but am waiting for more reviews), TEAC AI-501DA (http://www.teac.com/product/ai-501da/)
For separates: Rega DAC (http://www.rega.co.uk/dac.html) (maybe the new DAC-R (http://www.analogueseduction.net/rega-dacs/rega-dac-r-asynchronous-24bit-192khz-usb-dac.html)) + Rega Brio (http://www.rega.co.uk/brio-r.html). Audiolab M-DAC/Q-DAC + M-PWR (http://www.audiolab.co.uk/Product.aspx?lang=En&Tab=4) (though I'd like the option of analogue input).
Also been looking at some of the Cyrus & Naim gear, it's a bit more than I want to spend but possible I could get persuaded.

On the speakers side I really haven't started to look yet, but would need to be something robust and not too big & heavy. Which sadly rules out my longtime dream of owning quad electrostatics :-)

I welcome any thoughts.... budget for the DAC + amp is up to a grand, but I could be a bit flexible.

[StanleyB]

Thanks, appreciate the offer, but the issue is damage and/or ridiculous customs charges on arrival here when shipping direct.
Personally I can't remember anyone ever having received a unit from me that got damaged in transit. We designed the packaging to cope with that. And there are ways to limit log distance Customs charges, as many of my non-EU customers on AoS can testify to. It's just a case of knowing the regulations when trading internationally. But having someone carry the item with them can be the best option in most cases.

[jollyfix]

Where abouts in Kenya are you? i have some friends who work/ live there.