For me it comes down to availability, price, amount of burn-in, and condition. If I can find something I want at a good price and in great condition on the 'Gon I'll snatch it up.
My Magro 24 wall rack was bought brand new through an A'Gon dealer, but only because it was discounted from $299 to $150.
My Audience AU24 speaker cables might be new, because after sending it in for repair it looks like Audience may have sent an entirely new set back to me. Apparantly many upgrades were made during the time I first bought them and sent them in, so they looked completely different when they returned. Nice guys!
I think one of my Acoustic Zen Matrix Ref IIs was purchased new as well. Other than that everything else was hijacked from friendly audiophiles on the 'Gon.
MOST of my gear was bought USED. Only because you can find the pieces that you want for alot less money. Spending less money on pieces, means that you can get MORE pieces.
Marakanetz, I disagree that new is ALWAYS overpriced. When I initially graduated from "upper mid-fi" to "high-end", I was lucky enough to find a dealer that worked with me. It is hard to put a value on the knowledge that I gained from the dealer's expertise. In addition, a dealer's loyal customer will usually get first crack at a trade-in item, a demo that has to be sold, or an item that the dealer or a salesman wants to sell from their personal rig. I was also advised to stay away from a popular speaker line that the dealer was auditioning (shoddy cabinet construction). Warrantee work on a new item, although rare, can save you some SERIOUS money that would otherwise be spent for repairs on a used item. I was very lucky to find this dealer, as my previous experience with 2 other high end dealers were less than satisfactory, to put it mildly. As I got an education, I shifted to buying primarily used or demo gear. Personally, the only items that I would be somewhat reluctant to buy used would be a turntable or a phono cartridge.
It's not like you missing out on that "New Car Smell" buying used? As long as the item is in As New condition, & has a transferable warranty then I'll jump on the used bad wagon. However I feel I may actually be in the 50/50 new/used group.
I used to be 100% used. Now, I'm about 50/50. I buy used any chance the item I am looking for is available at a reasonable price. Lately, I've been buying new cheaper than I've seen used pieces listed here on audiogon.
Fatparrot, I do buy tubes cartridge, arm and TT new. The rest of my components either used or refurbed. As to electronics I'm OK with no warranty to fix problems myself.
everything i have was bought used except one set of interconnects i ordered from europe, my cartridge and my turntable. I guess i feel like when it comes to analog it is easy to damage most of these components, therefore i feel much more comfortable buying them used.
All of my cables are new. My CDP was a store demo, so where does that fit in? My TT was a factory upgrade, so it is new/used, my pre-amp was bought used and sent back to Klyne to be completely upgraded to the latest model so it is new/used. The rest is used. Applying Uppermidfi's math then mine is: 50% used 50% new/used 50% used and the rest is somewhere in between. I hope someone is doing the math on this. Maybe one of the underworked physicists can do all the calculations.
Everything other than two pieces bought new. The two pieces purchased otherwise were as new dealer demo's.
However I have sold a number of components and accessories on Audiogon. I have had very good results selling on this site as opposed to E-Bay. At the Audiogon site you are dealing with individuals who 1) know what they are looking at and 2) know what equipment is worth.
New Audio Alchemy transport Used Audio Alchemy Digital Interface New MF A324 DAC New Pioneer Universal Player 4 Used Power Amps (various) New Speaker Cables New and Used I'C's Used Magnepan Speakers Used Apogee Speakers New QLN speakers Used ARC preamp New Monarchy DAC New Lovian Equipment racks
If I see a piece, used, that I'm looking for, I'll buy it if it's in great shape. However i just bought a new universal player for less than the used ones here on Agon. Hope it's as good as the reviews.
my reasons for buying used gear are purely financial, im with marakantez in that i believe most new gear is over priced atleast within the mcintosh line that i use.
when i decided to buy a mcintosh mc2102 i went with new beacuse im new to tubes & the warranty & support from the dealer were important to me.
one thing i have found out from the dealer i use is that dealer mark ups are right around 45% within the mcintosh line & he sold me the mc2102 cheaper than used models advertised here on agon.
as long as i feel good about the seller & the gear is in great shape ill always buy most of my gear used.
Throughout the last 30+ yrs. of buying audio, I've kept new pieces longer but have had more used pieces. Buying used just makes it easier to try different gear & not lose big $$$ when it doesn't work out.
I currently have 3 new pieces, those being spkrs. that are 2.5 yrs. old, an isolation piece I just got last week & a phono pre I picked up yesterday. All my other gear is used and the cables are a combination of new, demo & DIY.
100% used...or, if I used Nrchy's methods, somewhere around 178% used. 100% Audiogon. Nothing from eBay. I used to like eBay back in the late 90's, but now you'd better be wearing protection when you trade there or you risk a nasty case of the Clap! Wait a minute, I did get some tubes on eBay. Come to think of it, that's when that burning sensation started!
The only new items I bought from a dealer were 2 specialty cables I needeed. One to connect my Opus 21 cdp to my Ayre preamp. It was a DIN to XLR cable, which never shows up used. (I have not seen one anyway.) Another was a really long interconnect cable, (which I would have bought used, if I was not in a time crunch. It was on sale though!)
All the rest were either purchased on Audiogon, (2 on Ebay), or at a dealer as a used or demo piece. (I consider demo pieces to be used, since, regardless of who used it, it was used, and the price reflected that.)
Thank you Audiogon for allowing me to upgrade my systme for half the price of buying new at a dealer.
PS I have never had a bad experience on Audiogon. (And only one ortwo minor irratating experiences on Ebay for that matter.)
used,mint cond,less then 50%retail, nuff said....... ...... ..... in what other hobby can you get gear that looks and operates like new (no scratches, no nicks, original manual, box, sales receipt, packing material), for less than 50% off of retail or more, often with pieces not that old and still have most of it life and usefulness left in it? Cars? nope. Not mint, and defintely not 50% off. car audio? trashed to hell (scratches, broken glass in heatsink fins, etc) and 25% off at best, clothes (not really), houses (yeah right), computers (not in mint shape and not 50% off for desirable items). So basically high-end audio is an anomally. And to me high-end is a commodity. That's why I buy used.
- 4 pr spkrs, 2 from dealers, 1 review pair from the importer, and 1 (the main rig pair) from A'gon - 4 sets of speaker cables, all but 1 from A'gon - 6 amps, 1 from a dealer, 5 from A'gon - 3 pre-amps/pre-pros, 2 from dealers, 1 from A'gon - 2 CD transports, both from dealers - 2 DACs, 1 from dealer, 1 from A'gon - 1 tuner from A'gon - 1 TT/tonearm from dealer - 2 cartridges from dealers
Wouldn't even try to guess about other cabling. The interesting part from my perspective is that if I actually think about the % of $ I've spent on A'gon v. dealers, its waaay different in A'gon's favor. In #s of pieces, I'm 12/25, or 48% A'gon. But, in terms of $s spent, I'm... er, wait a minute... about 60% A'gon. Do people find they tend to buy more expensive big-ticket items things on A'gon or cheaper ones? I think my major purchases tend to be A'gon, with the exception of mechanical stuff like TTs and CDs.
Tuner new...well it was in 1982 Universal player-new Pre/pro dealer demo speakers..5/7 new subwoofer. demo power conditioners all 3 used receiver. new DVD Player 3/3 new Replay TV new TV new Amp .7/7 used
WOW, I'm also a retail/demo buyer!!!!!
15 of 27 (55%) new or demo ..not bad, Im working on dropping the new/used ratio though
Stuff I would buy new - TT's, Arms, & Cartridges. CDP's and transports. Speakers. Tubes.
Things I would buy used - Amps, Preamps, Tuners, DAC's, I/C, cable and PC.
The logic to the above has to do with the problems inherent in shipping and probable damage as well as likely wear and tear by use of the previous owner.
My buying habits have been on small ticket items say 1k and below , interconect`s, power cable`s , issolation devices, I tend to buy used. On big ticket item`s say 5K I look for dealer demo`s you get good discounts but you will receive full warrenty w/o the BS of transferable warrenties I just purchased a BAT vk-51se dealer demo w tax I paid the same there as they are going for used here. Overall I would say 75% new 25% used. David
I generally buy new gear when buying solid-state receivers, home theater gear. New gets you into the shiny-object realm with the latest features and compatibility in the AV realm along with Internet radio and iPods. If you don't go new then you can’t play with those latest technologies...
My recent interest in tube gear lends itself more to buying used than new. I also bought a pair of Avalon speakers used, what a bargain that was. I would say that they have really been the trigger that got me to my next level as a music listener.
In my audio path, there have been several trigger events like those speakers. When I was 14, I saved my money and bought a Heathkit pre amp kit and also an amp kit (I still have the amp in basement storage). This provided me with a formative experience of making something work in a magical way.
My Nakamichi LX7 got me started recording off-the-air reggae which I could not buy at the time (I still have boxes of cassette tapes). The first edition of the iPod reawaken my interest in music, and it served me well on countless flights (I still have that one somewhere). The Marantz AV7005 got me into multi-channel AV (sold it when I got the Emotiva XMC, which replaced an intermediate Outlaw device).
There have been more of these events, each one exposed a new aspect that precipitated more spending and Audiogon sales. A kickstarter Pono got me into the hires digital game, which was followed by a Cambridge Audio 851N network player as well as an Ayon CD-07. The AYon is so well made and sounds so good, I am anticipating a Fedexed Ayon Titan III on Monday! As I said above, the Avalon speakers led to an Audiogon purchase of a factory pimped Rogue Cronus Magnum+ ...That introduction to tubes and great speakers forced an IC re-do with very transparent cables. I am now eying my speaker cables but will wait to see what the Titan sounds like before I upgrade...
People don’t change until reality or circumstances force change. Audiophiles seem different in that regard, in that circumstances can still force change on us but we are masters at setting up those conditions such that it becomes very difficult to eventually not upgrade...
Amp-current model, 4 months old, Audiogon Pre-Amp-current model, 5 months old, Audiogon Power Conditioner, on Audiogon as a 9/10, carton I received never opened. Server-current model, 6 months old, Audiogon DAC-new from dealer Speakers-new from dealer Sub Woofers-new from dealer Cabling-new from dealer
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