JGP wrote
Hi
I have just joined the forum in the hope that I can help you. I used to be the Celestion distributor for SA so I have a good idea of what is going on. To get a good price the agent needs to order directly from China in a minimum quantity (from memory) of 60 speakers of ONE model and ONE impedance. 60 x 16 Ohm Greenbacks will probably take more than 10 years to sell in this country so forget about an importer bringing in anything other than the popular lines. At the moment that is Vintage 30 and Greenback only and in 8 Ohm only.
The alternative is for the importer to bring in small quantities from the UK. This will add at least 25% to the price as you are paying to ship from China to the UK and then here plus Celestion add a premium to deal with small orders.
Products like Alnico blue and Heritage series are still made in the UK and would be ordered from there but Celestion UK obviously keep stock of all items to supply to UK dealers. I used to buy ex UK and make very small margins which meant that any speaker could be supplied reasonably quickly. This no longer suits Celestion's business model which is why I am no longer the importer.
My bet is that you were quoted a reduced price to get the deal and now Marshall don't want to pay a higher price or Tradelius will not order ex UK. Get your money back, demand interest at prime rate (lol) and order from overseas. You must use a 16 Ohm speaker and my personal recommendation in your amp would be a G12H (30W) or Vintage 30 (60W). G12M Greenback is only 25W and will work but is going to be flat out most of the time and will not last. The Heritage greenbacks are 20W for the M and 30W for the H. The H also has a very low resonance frequency whereas the G12H non Heritage is the higher frequency. Heritage are VERY expensive.
Cheers and good luck
Thanks for the info ? The pricing from Marshall was a few rands less than what Yebo or the link makepeace pasted so I doubt it was a brilliant deal and they did say that they must fill this container to somehow be able to sell at a resonable price but Im starting to think that merely bringing it in myself from eBay or some other supplier would've been far less of a headache.
Im waiting to see what Marshall respond with and then I'll make a decision from there whether to grab my cash and try another route 8)
