Hi Preety, and welcome to SGexpats.
The general advice for 'white goods' is "don't bother"because they are generally perishable after a few years and easily replaceable here. I think it holds true for home theatre items also.
I am a bit of an audiophile too, so I feel your pain and indecision regarding your own system. I guess you spent some $$$$ and a lot of time to put it together?
I would make two recommendations, depending on how emotionally attached to your system you are:
1) Just bring the speakers - assuming you have the original packaging. Hard to pack and not damage the cones if you've not got the original packaging. Whatever amp you have you can find locally. There are a lot of premium audio dealers here in SG. (While you are at it, check to see if there is a voltage switch on the amp?) Either way, don't use a step-down transformer, unless you can afford an isolating transformer too. Step-downs provide particularly 'dirty' power which can manifest itself as audio artifacts if its sited too close to your amp and speaker cables. Depends a bit on the quality of your amp. Besides, I don't like permanently hot items sitting behind the TV
2) Four speakers and a receiver is a LOT of bulk and weight to ship. For that kind of money you can easily sell and re-buy locally. Places to start googling are the Adelphi Centre, full of home audio shops. Also, you might get some info from local forums like
www.hardwarezone.com.sg
You won't see prices on the internet for Singapore, its not an internet purchasing kind of country (visiting Malls is the national pass-time here!). Prices will be similar to Australia if you can find prices in Oz. Otherwise, look for your preferred manufacturers official distributor in Singapore and give them a call for a quote to get prices.
I think the biggest consideration for you while packing is this:
Lots of people new to Singapore from the US are not familiar with the dinky size of apartments here. A one-bed place can be as small as 450sq/ft. Unless you are super-rich and your company is offering a landed
property, you will be in a
condo and to be honest, four floor standers and a sub is mostly going to be overwhelming in a small SG apartment with neighbours above, below and to the sides. You're certainly not going to be able to run it the sweet zone. On top of that you might not have space for four floor standers, and construction methods in Singapore means a lot of hard tile/wood floors and plaster walls...your system will almost certainly produce reflections you've not previously heard.
Trust me on this one - I have a couple of Dali Lektor 6 as my front L/R, a Lektor sub and a couple of Tannoy SE630i bookends for rear...spend most of my time with dynamic compression on full just to watch a movie after 11pm.
To me its a no-brainer. Sell and purchase locally...I mean, what audiophile would want to miss the opportunity to go out and audition brand new equipment...its the perfect excuse to persuade the Mrs!
