does anyone know if i have to pay tax when i order a pair at the hifiman website to germany?
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Probably, I ordered from Aliexpress to germany and had to pay tax. I know from other posts that hifiman has a warehouse in Europe, think in Poland. If they ship from there then of course there is no VAT applied but I guess they don’t have the XS there because they are not selling these in Europe yet.
Maybe its the easiest to just ask them.
ah ok thank you, i guess it would be the same with aliexpress right? the pair im looking at there says this at the checkout page:
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i ordered a couple of things on aliexpress before and never had to pay any tax
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Somewhere last year the limit for the VAT changed. It has to be paid starting at like 5€ product value now. If the price is lower than 150€ the VAT has to be paid by the seller and is already included in the price. Above 150€ you have to handle custom and pay yourself.
Yes, same thing with Aliexpress but the XS is listed at 465€ now. This price includes the VAT you have to pay. When you put the headphone into the shopping cart you get VAT discounted.
My seller was so nice to declare the value at 60€ so I only had to pay 11€ VAT instead of 75€. Paid 390€ total for these.
Maybe you like to try the same way. it took the seller 2 weeks though until they shipped them.
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390€ seems like an absolute steal for them, thanks for the info. i think i might try that. did you ask the seller about the vat ?
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No, didn’t ask them. Was surprised when I had to pick up the package at DHL and the woman said “You have to pay 11€ VAT” instead of 75€.
Maybe you can ask the seller nicely.
Of course I cant promise you it will end up the same with every order. So better be prepared to pay 75€ and be happy if you don’t.
You have gain control for a reason. Do not purchase a separate preamp to perform the function the amp supplied you.
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having a better volume pot in the chain is useful though (use one for my liquid spark)
I don’t know if you could find this interesting:
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You kidding me? This should be extremely useful for people considering the XS!
So TL;DR, XS is best bang for buck Egghead, almost as good as the Ananda (in some aspects, even better), and comparable to the $3000 He1000 v2s.
Wow. Say no more.
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Hello Everyone!
I was planning to by Sundaras with ifi zen dac V2 as a start of my journey into high fidelity sound. My budget is very constraint, I have 700 EUR max to spend on the full equipment and due to several space constraints I can’t have a full blown stack as I have to change my work/chill place often during a week so any device I buy should be rather portable and also allow to connect to PS5 (UAC1). In my country there is no official distribution of JDS nor Schiit so my options are a bit limited.
If someone could help me with the decision - does buying EDXS with ifi zen dac v2 (no money for new cables or zen can) make sense?
To put it in other words - would I be better off with Sundara + zen dac (maybe with new balanced cable) or buying EDXS + dac v2 (700 EUR for everything) without a possibility to buy for example a balanced cable would still offer a better sound and experience, in general without going into specific genres ?
Get the XS first, then work your way back.
Start with the right transducers, then as and when your budget allows, get the right amp.
Settle for a decent amp now and upgrade later, or save for the amp. Even a $200ish amp can have you set. The DAC should be of the least concern here. DACs are so close to each other with so many options in the budget range, it’s laughable.
The Sundara at this point has rendered itself irrelevant.
The worst you could do is get a Sundara now - and then curse yourself later looking for this upgrade.
Having a Balanced/Differential output setup is a decent addition to an already good sounding standard SE setup you could still have for now with these headphones - they already sound brilliant unbalanced - so balanced is something you could always work on after, down the road.
Also, a balanced cable can be scored for as little as $15 should you dearly want it. Zen DAC should be okay, but some other folks can pool in for what the best DAC/Amp you should get in your budget.
I’m just stressing on the headphones here with my knowledge. Play with options here, but do not take the XS out of the equation.
So many of us have run through multiple planar headphones to finally come to the XS and settle for it.
Don’t follow the longer route.
The best you could do is learn from our examples.
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Thank you for such a great advice. Looks like I found a target then 
- a decent online store in my country just put on their page that official launch in my region for XS is on February 28th and they will shortly start gathering preorders.
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You could also just get the Zen Can and run a Apple Dongle with a 3.5mm to RCA cable. More power and better features. It’s how I started out, and no regrets when it came to that. Just as compact as the Zen DAC except you will need to plug in the switching power supply.
Another option would be to consider the FiiO K5 Pro ESS.
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Running a Zen Can balanced on my EDXS and totally loving it, especially with XBass enabled (don’t judge me 
).
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Man, I keep looking at these and reading. I have the money to pull the trigger right now, but I don’t know if I should. I feel like the collection is at a place where the EXS wouldn’t be that much of a step up for me.
I feel like I should maybe hold out and save more for the next tier, something like the LCD-X, Kennerton Vali, LSA HP-2 or Beyer T1. ZMF Eikon is also something I am looking at. Of this short list, LCD-X and HP-2 seem to be leading.
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any news on when Headphones.com is supposed to get them? I asked a couple weeks ago and they only told me “soon”
I just couldn’t resist the hype about xduoo mt-604, so I grabbed one recently. For me personally this little amp with 6j1p ev voskhod tubes is just a phenomenal pairing with EDXS. Soundstage is huge and holographic, brightness was fixed and turned into air. I’ve purchased this amp to use it mainly as a preamp and it is also very good at that, just don’t fry your equipment, it’s max output voltage is 10V. It’s probably not safe to go above 5.5V, although I’m not sure
Cons: bass of this amp is average, speed is average, so it won’t work great with all types of music. Channels are reversed on purpose, and reversing them back made the sound linear and bright, you also can’t game on it because of that. It’s only balanced. Stock tubes are garbage and GE tubes are mediocre. Getting soviet rocket tubes is a must for this amp
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Has anyone tried the Dac Smsl DO200 with XS? It’s very similar to Gustard x16 as well as price.
Edit: I might just still grab the Gustard when Chinese New Year Sale comes due to shitty Smsl QC even if it sounds better than Gustard lol.