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Rogue Audio hard to resell, has it fallen out of favor ?

I've had a Rogue Sphinx 3 listed for a month at what sure looks to be a great price- $899. A few half hearted inquiries who then go dark. The unit is $1600 new. I haven't even gotten any low ball offers- which usually happens with any item I post, its part of the process. Meanwhile I've sold a Pass 250.8, An ARC REF150SE, and two other expensive amps with little trouble. 

 

Is the low end of the market suffering? Is Rogue falling out of favor ? My listing is at least $100 lower than a similar one and I think they're both priced fairly. I'll keep it rather than list for any lower. 

 

Any idea of what's going on ? 

 

thanks

speedthrills
phd
1,314 posts
 

jhw9, you're really fortunate & lucky to own a Rogue Metis because they are not put up for sale very often, in fact I can't find even one for sale on the internet. I removed mine for sale after I got my senses.back. Purchased some new 6SN7s (Sylvania) and it sounds super good. It  already is beating out a five thousand preamp I own. 

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jhw9
39 posts
 

@phd ..good to hear. Used to have 80wpc tube monoblocks driving the top modules of Von Schweikert VR-4’s and the heat was incredible (but so was the sound.. at least up top). Unfort the first time I had to re-tube it required a dozen Sovtek 5881’s and quad NOS Phillips 6SN7 GTB’s. Not sustainable.. and that was the late 1990’s (post-pandemic, I can’t even imagine). To keep a tube signature, a Rogue Metis Magnum pre seemed like an interesting alternative. I didn’t expect much, esp given how cheap the base model was, and even in its Magnum form with stock tubes it was still a bit rough, but after finding the right tubes and a couple mods courtesy of Rogue’s excellent support, it’s actually pretty impressive. The big improvement for me (being an unbuffered dual-tube design) was going to the right 6F8G/VT99 tube (with adapters to separate the power lead from the internals of the standard 6SN7 tube).

I’ve also got new GaNFET mono’s and an older Pass labs Class A amp in other ss system config’s, but the setup having an older class D amp coupled with the humble (but tweaked) Rogue surpasses them both for ambient soundscape with clean natural detail.. recreating the dimensional ambience of a recording in a delicate, non-fatiguing way without sacrificing dynamics, LF texture, extension, etc. My speaker’s designer once told me the 6SN7 is a very low distortion tube.. 7th order distortion, so not the predominately 2nd order you get w 300b’s, etc.. which might explain why the Métis is excelling at detailed ambient retrieval (while still being dynamic).

AFAIK, the later Rogue preamps are supposedly significantly better than the old Metis, esp in base form, but that inexpensive little thing has massive potential if you’ve got the right tubes for it.. it’s just highly sensitive being an unbuffered design.

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