Buying refurbished gear....


Welcome comments by those of you who have chosen this path. Also , anyone that has dealt with  Accessories4less please chime in . They seem to have some good prices. TIA

winoguy17

I buy most stuff used. There are some companies that have their own EBay stores and sell stuff refurbished at significant discounts from one fourth to one half off. You get the same warranties as you would if you bought new and generally you are essentially getting new equipment on some which are selling demo models. I've never had an issue buying refurbished and I'd probably do that with most everything if I had the opportunity. 

 Ive done 2 transactions recently with A4L and they were both excellent. Bought a receiver for my son and a center channel speaker. If there wasn't a refurb sticker on the box I would never have known. Both items were indistinguishable  from new.

It’s been several years, but had great success with a couple of items purchased through A4L No problems, prompt shipping, etc.

I am considering going for the refurbished AV7706 .

My only concern with that particular model has to with an upgrade several Denon & Marantz products received in May 2021.The HDMI 2.1 chip upgrade.

Apparently, 7706 models with a S/N of ********* 70001 or higher, incorporate the change and it would be installed in all affected Marantz & Denon products after May 2021.

So I have to wonder if any pre-June 2021 refurbs being sold include the chip upgrade. I guess I could also ask for them to verify the S/N.

 

A SA10 from Music Direct.  It's been a year and a half ago and so far so good. 

my understanding is that most refurbished gear from reputable merchants is new stuff which was returned either because the buyer changed his mind or couldn't figure out how to operate. my experiences with a4less have all been positive, tho i've noticed that their prices, while still vg, have crept up a bit on their best gear.

I have bought “refurbished gear” off and on for decades. Never high end audio gear, usually photography, HT, astronomy… stuff that matters less to me. Most of the time it appears new… perhaps some way of discounting and getting around manufacturers rules. But every once in a while I got a stinker… banged up or didn’t work… then the fight was on to get my money back. That one out of 5 or 10 was a pain in the butt. So, if it important to me… and the money is enough that I can’t just write it off. I buy new.

 Thanks to all for responding. I am considering a CD player thru acc.4less. Authorized dealer, manufacturer re-furb and full warranty, not to mention very good price. Seems too good, thus my question. .Thanks again

I’ve bought all my gear used, except for DACs where I buy a new one every four years or so ($1 - $2k budget).  Appreciate this may not be quite the same as “refurbished”

For McIntosh, I always work with the folks at Audio Classics, and for other things scan larger dealers to find what I am looking for that they may have from demo, etc. (I put together a nice 2nd rig this way)

Works for me

Good luck!

Have a great day

I bought a Bryston Optical Disk player that was “factory refreshed”.  Terrible outcome.  Never worked, had to pay shipping twice on both ends to send to Bryston for repair, now it resides in a landfill.

Just got an SVS 3000SB sub from clearance at Crutchfield.  "Scratch and dent" program.  Or just damaged manufacturer's box of a returned item.  I can find nothing wrong with it besides tattered box corners.  Full warranty.  Have had refurbished phones from my protection plan that were like new.

Also had very good results buying refurbished direct from Cambridge Audio.  All with full warranty.  Never needed it!

I’ve bought a bunch of refurbished stuff from acc4l for myself and friends for a number of years and all purchases were excellent. Also good experiences buying refurbished direct from Cambridge and Elac

I’ve purchased a couple home theater receivers from accessories4less.  The stuff I’ve purchased looked new,factory packaging,and warranty. Fair prices too. No affiliation. 

My older AV pre-pro crashed and new models were in short supply. I bought a refurb Marantz AV 7706 from Accessories4us a week or so ago. I paid for fast shipping and expedited handling. It shipped the day I ordered it and arrived in two days. Looks brand new. Has the original factory stickers on it/was "fac-packed" (though gear slingers know how to do that). Came with 1 year factory warranty plus 2 years extended.

Now if only I could figure it out- talk about complex! I did get it working though and it looks and sounds great. This is for a modest 4k/5.1 home theatre set up in my front "parlor."

Marantz did acknowledge that they are a legit reseller. It isn’t just price- given the Covid/Supply Chain/Yada (I need to come up with a defined term for this), such devices, brand new, seem to be in short supply.

Good hunting.

I don't know about Accessories4Less, but I have bought a number of 'refurbished' items and I've not had any problems with any of them. They often come with warranties as well....

I've used Accessories4less.com and have purchased a refurbed AV Denon receiver. It was cheap and if memory serves, it was packaged in a plain brown box (vs the original manufacturer's packaging). Other than that, it was like 50% off of "new" pricing and worked fine.

I had no issues with the transaction, and they actually contacted me to follow up and make sure I was happy.

I was happy with the sale and the state of the equipment when it arrived. No issues there.

Now, as for the AV Receiver itself, it wasn't a high quality piece and I gave it away. I think my son-in-law law is still using it in his man cave.

All of the refurb stuff I've gotten has been like deeply discounted new with warranty. Never used acc4less but they seem like mostly consumer grade middi.

I bought a new Decware first new thing in 5 years, then it was class D amps before that. Before THAT it was used Mac gear. 100 pieces of gear 3 newer pieces are still 7 and 2 years old. Everything else is OLD, maintained and if need be rebuilt.

I watch out for the yellow cap crowd too. Macs just don't sound right with polies vs PIO rebuilds and then know what to put in. No need for fancy high dollar caps either. Good resistors Russian surplus PIO caps work the best for most Macs. The PS and a few spots and types of gear like the MC225 you can ruin by changing the caps, they don't go bad very often.. PS is a different story..

Fun expensive and  life long habbit/hobby for me..

Regards