He
does zero marketing and builds every cable by hand. GroverHuffman.com
SOTA cabling for mid-fi prices. The materials cost is reasonable,
it's all in the design and two hours labor per cable. He has sold
worldwide and includes some highly respected listeners including Warner Bros.
chief music producer. He is backordered from two to six weeks.
Money back guarantee as well. I'm his beta tester but have to pay for the
cables (why wouldn't I, the time consuming manufacturing would be unfair and I
get the newest designs first).
GroverHuffman - wow, a cable manufacturer that actually uses Furutech Rhodium connectors.....but then he lost me when I started reading about silver and silver-plated elements, lol.
auxinput- I’ve been through at least 100+ cables designs in the past 20+ years. Grover experimented with all copper, all silver and various mixes until about 5 years ago when he settled on using both. However, the + and - in ICs and ground with A/Cs have different wire configurations based on empirical testing. Also, the mixture of copper to silver is heavily weighted in favor of copper. 15 years ago, he made an all copper woofer cable for me that sounded better with his jumper used full range than the bi-wire I previously had. I now have his speaker cable which has about 90% copper/10% silver. Same with the ICs and ACs, a touch of silver. We found that the silver adds openness and highs to the sound that a 100% copper cable does not. We have brought his cables to audio shows and used them in dozens of high end systems which the dealers loved (and permitted him to use) over than other cables they were using.
Grover has a philosophy that he will not overcharge for this work. Based on comparison with other high end cables, he vastly undercharges.
As to the IC connectors, they are low mass, 20mil silver on pure copper billeted RCAs, superior in quality to high end plastic Neutrik with their limited connection area and cheap feel and better sounding than WBT with their heavy mass for ICs. As to A/C connectors, he will use Furutechs over Oyaide of your choice or his own choice which he believes sound better at lower cost.
Hey fleschler, didn't mean to step on any toes. I have been through tons of cable designs as well, and for me, I have found that silver can help in some situations, but it mostly becomes bright and artificial. Copper with rhodium plated terminations will give the same improvement in opennes but will sound natural and not artificial like silver. I have found, in some cases, that silver fuses can help with providing faster voltage to circuits in equipment that are warm. I have seen silver cables work in some systems, but then you are now working around the silver element and having to compensate for it.
At one point about 18 years ago, Grover chose silver which was a mistake except with his equipment at the time. About 13 years ago, I purchased EAR gear and he decided copper was the thing and designed very good cables since then (the EAR gear really liked his cables post copper). He added silver as we tried the cables on EAR, custom tube gear and other customers gear. As I said, there is a difference between adding a 26 versus a 28 gauge silver wire, (with equipment which can resolve the differences). His new Pharoah line adds a few silver wires in the positive which results in a more open, spacious yet tonally rich sound. He has many design features which are noted on his site but not the separate positive and negative teflon tube he uses now to reduce the impedance. No brittle or brightness from his cables using a soupcon of silver (unlike 18 years ago which were all silver).
Most of my audio friends use Synergistic Research Blue fuses (after using the Blacks) for a big increase in SQ yet we use tube gear.
From different posters & my response""Also, who is to say something is "overpriced" By definition the market. If you're having trouble selling it the market has authoritatively spoken. If you don't like it you're not entitled to say it's not somehow overpriced.
"If you got good schitt they will sell." Yes, it will, usually (modified by locality & sane pricing). The market again.
" refused several OK offers on the other 2 but don't mind keeping them." This is the Mother of all dysfunctional rationalizations frequently expressed in the form of, "I don't really need to sell them" This is just an indisputable, incontrovertible lie. To oneself, others & the world. If you went to the trouble of advertising it (let alone paying money on AG or elsewhere to do it) then on some level you NEED to sell it/have it out of your life. The rationalized permutations of pride & various control issues can be very emotional indeed, but always are the result of some flavour of not being able to own your (unconscious) stuff. Money is only 3 things. Time, effort & energy. Wasting all 3 to get an arbitrary number merely reinforces the above points. By a lot.
I don’t consider 5 minutes and $10-$20 a major commitment. When I change gear in main system, I need to sell gear it replaced. When looking to make change out of curiosity in secondary system, then if I can’t sell it doesn’t matter. A few times I waited a year and then it sold Even when it didn’t sell I got my $10 worth talking to other members
"Patience is a Virtue". Especially when it comes to Ebay. I sell tons of gear there. I buy tons of gear there as well. Man-o-man I wish I had known about this swap-meet! I believe I talked to "Lance" at the show a couple weeks back. May I come to a meeting to see what you guys are all about before plunking down my $70? Where do you hold your meetings? Are there snacks? Hee hee hee. Lance seemed to lose interest in talking when he heard I was developing a "Line Source" type of system for market. I was wondering about that.... By the way. Those "Guy's downstairs", that had the tables with all the vintage gear, that fix gear in Baltimore? Their OK, At any one time they have 25 to 40 pieces of gear from my collection. But again, "Patience is DEFINITELY, a Virtue with them!!!" But they can actually FIX them. Not just another, "Swap a board" or else it's, "Your amp is fried!" shop. They are actually apprenticing a few guys to keep vintage gear alive! And you should see their eye's light up when I bring in rare gear! So they are a bit better than just "OK", "IMHO". And "YES" I do have an Oppo-203 for sale! Scott
I like to peruse the items on sale on Audiogon but...wow...is it my imagination or has the number of items being sold here decreased significantly? It seems fewer items turn up than ever before when I search for certain brands.
As you can see from the prior post, the only thing selling here, is the unexpectedly low priced stuff to the people who are waiting in the bushes to snipe as fast as they can. Not saying it’s a bad thing (I be sniper-ish myself, it’s how you get the good stuff at the right price), but the, other, the rest....the normal part (largest mass of seekers and sellers) that would normally be tied to it, to be as the bulk of the purchase scenarios --- has pretty well gone bye bye.
Something about auction and sales listing costs incurred and returns on said expenses, it somehow comes to mind....
@john1, do you actually listen to yourself or do you just open your mouth and schitt falls out? You do understand the difference between need to and want to don't you? When you call someone a liar it really says a lot about you, but I do want to thank you for making your second post on this topic shorter and less boring than your first, at least I didn't almost fall asleep from boredom as I read it. Just sayin
I sold all six items in one weekend. I priced them all at what I thought was an attractive price. Got a few unreasonable low offers but sold four items at asking price. Now my dentist can make another boat payment.
I urge all sellers to overprice everything and hold it like that. There will be a lot of buyers, just wait for couple of months. That's how you capture the market and inflate the value while creating new normal. Prices are often already inflated. Ten year old piece, whatever it is, with some exception, should cost no more than 10% of its new equivalent. When item is priced low and sold very fast, this creates unfair situation when most members can't even see the ad let alone have time to think of whether or not buy it. First come first 'steal', right ? Right.
No one has money. Everyone on here is a have-not. Let's just be real. If the item isn't less than $2k it's hard to sell.
Even if you're in the market for a $5-10k item, those are almost all dealers trying to sell new OR they're trying to make a profit from a trade-in or something like that. I have no idea how The Music Room operates but you know damn well they have the system figured out. You can't lowball dealers because they want to make money on the stock.
What's annoying are ads for weird lesser-known brands and which are usually 10+ years old with multiple owners. Look bro, half off of MSRP from 15 years ago for a product without reviews or seen at shows after two owners isn't even remotely a deal. No one is going to buy your CRAP. If you would price ACCORDINGLY you could possibly move it.
What Music Room sells appears to be mostly overpriced, sure. My impression regarding haves and have-nots among those who participate is mixed and complicated. Besides, I think that some are just not in the mood to buy for various reasons. But that's active participants. Perhaps many sales go overseas especially to Asia. I also see some good 220V equipment from overseas dealers that no-one buys for months, some priced reasonably but still quite expensive. But you are right, $2k for old piece is already a lot of money, certainly for me. Overall things don't go well, no doubt.
At some asking prices I’d rather buy new with warranty. For me the warranty is worth at least 25% of the new price. So the "like new" item has to be discounted accordingly.
I'm watching an item on eBay. Retails for $400 with free shipping. The item came up 2 or 3 weeks ago. Description says "new open box". $355 'buy it now' plus $20 shipping. Below that it says "don't try to low ball me, I've got plenty of time".
So he wants to sell his used item for $25 less than new from manufacturer with warranty.
Well, it sat there for a while. Now price is $310 plus $20 shipping. The remarks about low balling are gone. A few people watching. No one bidding.
But that's still only $70 less than retail with warranty etc.
I might bite if he gets down to $280.
However, I get his game. I see people buying used stuff on eBay at or just below new prices all the time. Rubes.
N80 If you really want to have a chuckle just take a gander at what some loons buy gift cards for. I howl in helpless laughter when I see idjits paying MORE than face value for gift cards just because they are too lazy to get off their butts and head to Target or BJ,s and get 10% OFF a gift card. Too funny!
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