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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@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
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....
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.
"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 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
I've sold about a dozen classic tube gear items on Audiogon at my asking prices. Classic tube gear keeps escalating in price like my sales of a McIntosh MX110, Fisher 200, MacIntosh MC30s, Fisher 400/500 receivers, etc. They are now in greater demand than when I sold them over 15 years ago. I've purchased items for about 50% of retail price as well. I've had really fine experiences with Audiogon but couldn't buy speakers or cartridges for the same reasons stated previously (won't ship and condition issues, respectively).
I did just purchase speaker cables at a fire sale price because they are from a highly respected but unknown manufacturer and he was selling long runs (20' and 25') of 2 pairs and a single run of 25' and I only needed a 25' pair. Tough to sell unknown brands.
I have never had any trouble buying things on sites like Audiogon, but selling is a different matter. I am 100% honest and fair, but I have been swindled on a number of occasions.
When I take the risk of selling into account, plus the actual cost of packing, driving to UPS, and shipping, the value of online selling depreciates. I live in a small city (100,000 +/-), so having people pick up the equipment or Craig’s list doesn’t cut it for audiophile equipment (different if you live in a large metro center). I find it easier to sell equipment on consignment. I get less money that way, but all I have to do is bring in the equipment. When I consider the value of my time, it is a better deal!
Whether or not the OP can afford certain advertised pieces of equipment has less relevance than whether he feels the advertised price is justified. Anybody can put any price on anything, and buyers can react in any way they want. Who cares?
In my case, I usually give away my old equipment to budding audiophiles, especially those that I know have limited means. For example, I had some 30 years old speakers that I installed "new from the factory" drivers in. They looked and sounded brand new. The manufacturer had just issued an anniversary edition for $1500.00. So I figured I could get - maybe - $750.00 for them. I had the original boxes, but they were shot, so deduct $75.00. We're at $675.00 now. Shipping would be around $75.00 (two boxes), so we're at $600.00. I would have to find and modify two boxes, so let's say two hours of my time (I make $45.00/hr) and $10.00 supplies, so we deduct another $100.00. Deduct another 10% for the 1/10 deals that go wrong, and I am at around $450.00 (about what I paid for the new drivers). At that price, knowing that I would have trouble convincing any new buyer that I had actually installed new original factory drivers, I decided I would get more satisfaction giving them away to a thirty year friend who loves music but wasn't in a position to spend any money on audio equipment. He was thrilled, and I get the satisfaction of helping out a dear friend and knowing that those excellent, lovingly cared for speakers found a good home!
There's a truly profound & deep as the ocean issue at play here. The incontrovertible source of the reflexivity embodied in the often stated sentiment, "I'm not giving it away" needs to be understood. The resistance of many sellers to doing so is ferocious. It has to do with control issues fueled by unexamined & undealt with emotions that they are often too unwilling to remotely deal with - choosing rationalized denial instead. The economics here make this more then clear much of the time. Money represents 3 things only - time, effort & energy. The first in particular is an irretrievably, irreplaceable commodity. One that so many are prepared "to give away" (in addition to the other two) to pursue what is often the illusion of gaining the prosperity money is a component of. There are partial exceptions of course - such a when you need to finance something specific with X amount of dollars that cannot be easily supplemented by other resources. This is too rarely the case however. All studies show the human mind is wired to be substantially more sensitive to loss then gain. Actions are precipitated by loss 3 to 4 times as easily as gain. Its a stubbornness built into us that is no longer as rational as when it meant living or dying regarding our food supply when we hunted to eat. Loss of food stored was always more keenly felt then the urge to go out & hunt (unless we were ravenous). Our most powerful intellectual attribute, our imagination just intensifies it near infinitely in modern times - fueled by old, deep emotional programming caused by bad experiences . It makes us weaker as we desperately pretend it does the reverse. All of us - its simply a matter of degree.
Whats required is true strength - not arrived at easily. Otherwise referred to as maturity. The maturity to realize that when your unconscious tells you that it is time for something you own (or in general) to go out of your life - you let it. In the most efficient way possible - including not squandering irreplaceable time (& the other 2) - so you can get on with the next phase of your life. The meaning of life is always most fundamentally: To Learn. It can really be a B at times & for many, especially here.
Squandering time, effort & energy can thus easily become negatively addictive while rationalizing it with a vengeance. Notice how many will just double down petulantly when this pointed out to them. Their masculinity (usually a man) feels threatened & is instinctively responded to. No man is unaffected but the genuinely strong & mature ones have learned to let go.
In my experience it’s timing more then price. I have more than one time actually up the price on items and sold them after upping my price sometimes the same day.
I find in my experience with selling that timing is more important than price. I have posted items at a great price and have not sold the item ,than actually up the price and sold the item that same day . it has happened to me more than once.
Re nonoise: I love your speakers, and are fairly priced. But still out of my range (literally), especially living in Alaska. I believe that shipping from and to here is more than just small part of the issues of buying and selling that I deal with. And with soliciting offers, there are some who will offer a small percentage of the asking price and some who are truly trying to negotiate. I embrace negotiating, but few are willing. But, I will continue to do the thing I love and enjoy: buy/trade/listen/sell.
You are so right, the CJ ART, Audio Research, Classe, Magnepan, Martin Logan, Magnum Dynalab, and other gear that I own are an obvious sign that I cannot afford gear.
sounds like you can't afford the gear that you are lusting after because you can't afford it. When I was recently in the process of purchasing a new house the ones I really wanted were way above my budget so I wrote them all a letter and told them to lower their price so I could afford them. They just didn't "get it"
99% of the for sale add's are over priced. 75% are way way over priced...so much that you cant even or don't even what to start a negotiation. The others you try to start an honest fair negotiation with either never respond or get all pissed off.
I just recently sold an entire 7.2 home theater system...not the highest grade stuff but really good...Klipsch Ref7 speakers, dual subs, 7 large speakers, Da-Lite screen, 8 theater seats, video processor, middle atlantic racks, Oppo, Marantz processor and more. Sold it all in 3 weeks max. Priced it right to sell. Its gone out of my life, not in storage and I've moved on. It was very easy no drama sales.
I am currently looking to build a "Listening Room" in my new home. For fun I am buying all used gear if I can find what I like at a fair price. So far...ZILCH...I'd rather pay a few more dollars and get new. People think there stuff is worth it's weight in gold and some sentimental family heirloom! Its used electronics guys...geesh!
A lot of sellers on audiogon are trying to sell items for not much less than one can buy bnib from a good dealer. Its not worth buying used for a 5-10% savings.
I am moving and downsizing. Found a Shure V-15 type v cartridge new in box in my stuff. Threw it up on eBay along with a Shure test record at $169. Sold for $420. Put up a Grace F-9L with no stylus for $99. First bid came in 4 hours. Waiting to see what happens.
Guy on eBay bought a crossover from me. We got to talking. He bought 90% of my JBL speakers including a pair of L300 I did not look forward to moving. And most of my loose drivers and 42% of my vinyl. Made 3 trips. I expect one more trip. :-)
FWIW, the budget hifi products have gotten so good in the last few years that it makes selling traditional hifi more difficult....especially separates. There are buyers, but they are fewer and farther between unless you are selling McIntosh, PrimaLuna, Naim, and a few others.
I will throw in that I recently sold some big monoblocks that I didn’t want to ship locally, trouble free sale. The buying offer came to me from an ad I ran on Craigslist. I had three conversations with three potential Agon buyers but none came through with a deal. So don’t ignore Craigslist. It can help you sell your high end gear. That said, it’s far from perfect and I have always enjoyed meeting Audiogon members whom I’ve bought and sold gear with in the past.
I enjoy reading the thoughts of highly-opinionated people, one’s with a well-defined point of view. Arthur is certainly that! I bought a piece from him a few years ago for a very reasonable price, and found him to be a pleasure to deal with.
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