The above link explains in English that the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry of Japan has decided to exempt vintage equipment from the “PSE Law” and Vintage Equipment is defined as audio equipment, electric musical instruments, cinema projectors, photo-developing machines and enlargers made or discontinued by 1989.

For us who love audio equipment, it still leaves a lot of great equipment made between 1989 and 2001. Luckily some second hand dealers like http://www.hifido.co.jp/merumaga/osu_sale/060310/ will re-certify all the second-hand audio equipment they sell according to regulations in the new PSE law (because HiFi-Do has registered with the ministry as a re-manufacturer of the equipment, and they take legal responsibility for the equipment they sell regardless of which year it was originally made).

Cheers! (Stig of LYRA, an audio manufacturer in Japan)

I have got disappointed with Japanese mass media’s
negligence to report the essence of this problem.

Is there any country, in which government decides what vintage is ?

Please be informed that the essence of the problem, shared among
Japanese networkers.

1.The safety will not improve by enacting the PSE law,
because there is no difference about guidelines between PSE law
and previous law.
Or the safety will get worse for foreign merchandise are to be
imported blindly if it is with PSE seal.

2.The PSE law does NOT represent old.
No lawmakers have discussed old electric/electoronic appliances
and there is no representaion about “old”and “secondhand”
on the law.

3.The PSE law is of the bureaucrat by the bureaucrat for
the bureaucrat.

Goverment enforces it’s application to old electric/electronic
appliances, because inspection organizations have
gaven seats to many old bureaucrats with annual
income over 10 million JPY or86,300 USD.

4.The law is anticonstitutional.
Ban on trade of old electric/electronic appliances means
property and inventory turn to zero on balanse sheet,
as their market values will be zero.

5.Big gap between networkers and majority of people
As mass media contiunes to ignore above points,
there are serious perception gap between networkers
and majority of people.

Thank you for reading about this shameful law.

Best regards,

About a month ago, I wrote about Japan’s impending restrictions on the sale of electronic devices more than five years old. The new regulation, which is set to take effect April 1, allows the sale of such equipment only if the seller gets a …...