Buying Used Speakers

As with anything used, buyer beware always.  If you can see it visually and hear it, buy locally as the first option.  I've never had issues buying used, the speakers worked as they are suppose to.  Used is a good place to save money for sure.  If you are buying speakers that are 5 years old, should not have an issue.  If you are buying speakers 20+ years old, you should definately review them.

Echo and TMR are great people. Have done many transactions with echo for over 29 years, I’ve done more with TMR in the last 5 years. Echo does have their biases toward there new products, TMR is more neutral. 
I always go listen to the speakers if buying used, if new, I can go into a dealer or order online.

As for age, 10 years isn’t that old with newer speakers. I’ve even had 20 year old cheaper speakers that sounded very good and would last many more years. For example, I would not hesitate on buying a pair of Revel salon 1’s or studio 1’s today, and they are 20 years old. The more reputable manufacturers have rebuild services which could be much cheaper than buying a new pair.

I’ve owned 35+ pairs of speakers over the last 11 years. About half were either pre-owned or dealer demos.

I’ve had both positive and negative experiences buying used, but also a couple bad experiences with new speakers as well.

One thing I’ve come to conclude is that one seller’s “7/10” condition speaker might be a 9/10 (allegedly) in the eyes of other sellers. This seems to be ever more prevalent in the post-Covid era. I can’t count how many times I’ve see a pre-owned speaker listed as a “9/10” when it’s obvious to me that the drivers were abused, such as tweeter domes with ripples or dimples (very common with Dynaudio tweeters for example).

@cubbiesman  I've been buying and selling used speakers and all things high end audio on Audiogon for over 20 years with very positive results.  Now, there's several on-line outlets where used high end audio can be bought and sold.  I couldn't afford my own audio system if I had to buy it retail and not pre-owned as I did. Most online used websites like audiogon have it to where you can give feedback on a buyer or seller.  Usually, online sellers are very carful not to sell bad items because the buyers can leave negative feedback on them for all to see.  The ability to leave feedback on a buyer or seller is a great safeguard against negative or fraudulent transactions.  But, of course, there's always some kind of a risk factor in just about everything we do in life.  You decide.      

I practically only buy used gear. There are not may high end stores where I live, their selection is narrow and they charge exorbitant prices. I never bought speakers used, but I did buy a number of headphones. It is very difficult to find a place that would let you listen to headphones (Japan has no issues with that... but US does). But used or demo units provide great opportunity for evaluation. If you don't like them, you won't lose much.

Exception is when technology is new and there are no used units yet. For example, I purchased R2R DAC new - Denafrips makes really good ones and you rarely can find them used (I guess people keep them). 

Otherwise I bought and sold Pass, BAT, Sonic Frontiers, Adcom, Rotel, Marantz, Auralic, Rega, VPI, you name it.