What did you order or the post deliver? (Japanese N Gauge)

[clem24]

I figure china can manipulate their cash and no one says anything so japan should do the same.

 

Actually I think they did. The moment they announced that they were going to mess with the Yen, it actually went to 1 CAD=80 YEN to 1 CAD=85 YEN. That lasted all of about a week. 

[keitaro]

yeah cause china just eats it up lol

[Martijn Meerts]

I have a large order which is now partially in stock, and partially delayed. I'm in no hurry though, considering I'm busy enough with the new house, and that's costing a lot as well :)

 

No new train related orders, but I did order a turntable... The kind that plays LPs, not the kind that turns trains .. (I'm in sort of a vinyl revival mode right now, recently bought some of the new 180gram vinyls, including a rather cool 3-LP Iron Maiden Picture Disc set ;))

[clem24]

No new train related orders, but I did order a turntable... The kind that plays LPs, not the kind that turns trains .. (I'm in sort of a vinyl revival mode right now, recently bought some of the new 180gram vinyls, including a rather cool 3-LP Iron Maiden Picture Disc set ;))

 

LPs rock but 24/96 vinyl rips are an even better alternative as they're already pre-cleaned of hiss and pops! Just need a good 24/96 DAC to match...

[Martijn Meerts]

The hiss and pops are part of the charm though ;)

[keiman]

Depends on what deck, tonearm, cartridge,amp combination?

Personal equip is old school80/90's stuff- Pink Triangle Turntable with Orfoton  Moving Coil Cartridge,going to a John Shearne Power/Preamp combo withTannoy Studio Monitor speakers.

Also on system a Nakamanchi Dragon Cassette deck,  

[Martijn Meerts]

turntable is a pro-ject debut III Esprit with Ortofon Alpha MM cartridge, all aliminium tonearm and acrylic platter. Amp is a Denon avr-4308, speakers are Bowers & Wilkins 683 and an SVS cylinder subwoofer. Also hooked up are a Denon CD player, Pioneer DVD player (region free, required for my asian horror movies ;)), (old) Sony DAT recorder, (even older) Sony MD, and a plethora of game consoles. And of course my Mac Pro ;)

 

Not audiophile stuff, but my hearing isn't sensitive enough to hear the difference between my gear, and gear that's 10x the price.

[cteno4]

Not audiophile stuff, but my hearing isn't sensitive enough to hear the difference between my gear, and gear that's 10x the price.

 

A friend is a surround sound engineer and mpeg encoder and on the side installs really high end AV systems. he goes to dolby school each year and about a third of the attendees are high end audiophiles and the rest engineers. first thing they do is they do is go into a sound stage with about 25 speaker systems and playback the same piece (from ultra high end gear) and have folks blind rank them. the $500/speaker BAs always win, competing with some speakers costing over $10k ea... lesson dolby teaches is most recorded stuff is not engineered to hear the difference on $10k speakers... many red faces are seen at the unveiling of what the crowd thought was what speaker when they take a guess at which was which...

 

his install clients do not believe this so he has tricked a few and installed the more inexpensive speakers for a test and the clients loved them and loved the savings in the end. a few still insist, but hey he gets a percentage on hardware so if they insist, he does it...

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[linkey]

I've just brought a KATO 20-457 Double track plate girider bridge (grey) to join up with the KATO 20-436 2x Double Truss Bridges (light blue) to add to my module layout so I can create an anime scene with it. Now I just have to make the expanding tracks only use 54mm on both sides to connect, if that doesn't work then I would buy a 2x 124mm double track viaduct to get it right.

[KenS]

The expanding tracks don't go shorter than 78mm, or did you mean something else?

 

You should start a projects thread and post details.  Recreating an anime scene sounds like an interesting module concept.

[linkey]

The expanding tracks don't go shorter than 78mm, or did you mean something else?

 

You should start a projects thread and post details.  Recreating an anime scene sounds like an interesting module concept.

 

 

Yeah I the min is 78mm for the expanding track, (as we use the KATO standard modules for our displays) so it would be interesting, but getting on track I also brought some evergreen (214) poly pipe .040mm to use for scenery.

 

this what happens when I go interestate find a hobby store and buy more Model Railroad items :P

[KenS]

My JR West 125 Series two-car EMU showed up today (actually it arrived Saturday, but I wasn't home so I had to go to the post office today).

 

Additionally, last week I'd put in an order for a big pile of non-train model railroad stuff (scenery items, etc) from HS to take advantage of the half-price shipping promotion.  I had just paid for that, when my Kato Ginza line train I'd had on reserve showed up ready to be paid for.

 

At which point, Paypal hit me with their "you can't make any more payments using this card until you link your bank account" surprise.  It's not well documented, but there's a limit on how much you can spend with a card even if you have a Paypal account if it's not linked to a bank account, and in my case that's about a half-million yen (why it's in Yen is anyone's guess, I was using that card via paypal long before I started buying stuff from Japan). 

 

But I've apparently spent that much via Paypal over some number of years with that card.  I couldn't find any mention of this in their FAQ or other help, but there's an "account limit" link at the top of my account page that shows it, and they sent me an email confirming that.

 

I'm sure they're trying to avoid credit-card fees.  Once linked, they make a direct withdrawal the default (you can change it for each transaction, but you have to suffer through a couple of "really, it's easier if we just grab your money now" screens).  Annoying people.

 

And, just to make life exciting, my bank's website was down for three days, preventing me from checking the Paypal deposit amounts they use to "confirm" a bank account, so I couldn't activate it, and couldn't make the HS payment.

 

Fortunately the "3 days" HS wants you to make a payment for a reservation within is either 3 business days or a soft limit, as I just got all the idiocy out of the way and paid HS (after four days of this mess) and it seems to have gone through okay.  I paid with my credit card. 

 

But on the plus side, I've got my JR West 125 and I'm going to go "break it in" (i.e., play with it) tonight.  My "big box of stuff" is in transit.  And my Ginza train is probably being packed up as I type.

 

BTW, I'm really thankful for HS's packing.  The 125 Series' shipping box arrived with a 1" hole in the side.  It looks like someone impaled it on a piece of rebar or something.  But whatever it was just went into the packing paper, missing the plastic box the train was in altogether.

[keitaro]

received the 500 nozomi plarail set.

 

and

 

2 x ginza lines sets

3 x new light sets

Micro Ace(Arii) A0874 Toubu DRC (Deluxe Romance Car) Series 1700 (holy goodness)

motor unit x 2 for my monorail project.

Tomix 6497 [Limited Edition] Track Cleaning Car (35th Anniversary Color) x 1

Tomix 6432 Track Cleaning Car Set (Electric Locomotive Type ED61 Brown + Multi Track Cleaning Car Brown) x 1

tomytec car sets x 3 different ones

[Guest JRF-1935]

Received the EF66 in "Super Liner" livery a few days ago I bought from KrackleHopper here on the forum.  A superb engine, great deal, and a "fine" gentleman to deal with!

Rich C

[clem24]

Bought this guy for the hell of it. I believe it's a magazine/press sample of the (seemingly now defunct) TexT Model's KuHa 715 in JNR red/cream.

 

According to Mark Veneman, they were supposed to be released way back in 2004. But I guess the company never got off the ground.

 

I thought that it might have been closely related to the Microace version. The MA version came out in 2004 as well. But the MA one is definitely more detailed. Lots of missing details on this one like the grab irons on the conductors' door, some missing underbody details, etc... I have not taken it out of it's package. Just thought it'd would make a neat little collectors item.

[westfalen]

Two Kato ED16 electric locos.

[KenS]

My two Kato Ginza trains just arrived (Saturday Express-mail delivery, I love it).  Very small cars compared to a commuter train.  I'll have to take some photos when I get them on the track this evening.

 

I didn't order the new lighting kits.  After seeing how good they look, I'll need to get some.

[marknewton]

A B Train Shorty power unit 1 and a power unit 2, for some non-Japanese narrow gauge projects.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[keitaro]

Bit the bullet and ordered a world kougei deki 3 kit.

Cheap and small so hopefully easy to assemble good beginers kit

[keiman]

Got some loads from the US today - perfect for the Kato Pocket line wagons. or  open trucks if they will fit in the Tomytec ones.

[cteno4]

my tomix N700-8000 R10 came today. quite a nice and colorful shinkansen model! nice that rainbow ten is still doing 20% off on preorders!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Guest JRF-1935]

Got my EF10-24, preordered through Bob of BT_Trains, (saved some bucks there) and 29 more early Tomy freight cars won on Yahoo Japan Auctions.  Got more "stuff" coming!

Rich C

[Tecchan]

my tomix N700-8000 R10 came today. quite a nice and colorful shinkansen model! nice that rainbow ten is still doing 20% off on preorders!

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

That's cool, I should check on R10 more often.

 

How much does it cost you?

I just payed mine from HS and it was 21080¥ + 1580¥ shipping.

[cteno4]

That's cool, I should check on R10 more often.

 

How much does it cost you?

I just payed mine from HS and it was 21080¥ + 1580¥ shipping.

 

Kumo,

 

R10 does not list preorders in trains much, when i see something coming i just email them a request to preorder the item and usually they say fine. then they just send the pp request when it comes in. they seem to still be doing 20% off on trains. price was 198400 yen plus 1590yen shipping.

 

jeff

[Tecchan]

That's cool, I should check on R10 more often.

 

How much does it cost you?

I just payed mine from HS and it was 21080¥ + 1580¥ shipping.

 

Kumo,

 

R10 does not list preorders in trains much, when i see something coming i just email them a request to preorder the item and usually they say fine. then they just send the pp request when it comes in. they seem to still be doing 20% off on trains. price was 198400 yen plus 1590yen shipping.

 

jeff

 

Thanks. About 1200¥ saved, that's worth it!