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What's Worth More on the Open Market - Your Records or Your Audio Gear

Have anyone of you actually calculated this ?

What's your personal ratio ?

I have not looked into this in any detail, and have if anything, only recently.....

Told family members (not my wife) 8^0..........something along the lines of ........." this piece of equipment is worth ......this (xxxx) ......." 

I have, told all family members that they could probably start an Ebay Record Selling Career; if their own career doesn't pan out.... with what is contained in the house. I don't think they are buying this idea ......right now.

This has me a little concerned.  

I assume the good records will only go up in value.  

Some gear I own, I believe is in this same state of fluctuating upward values.

Interested in your opinions, and findings on the subject.    Have you crossed this bridge yet ?  

128x128ct0517
larry5729's avatar
larry5729
1,008 posts
 
I'll give you $5.00 for them.  I can never understand why anyone would own a turn table and records because most of the time you can hear the noise from tracking the needle in the grooves of the record and this is after you freshly clean a record. 

I think streaming music using Tidal sounds better because there is no noise and you would have to pay a fortune to buy the number of records or CD's they offer in their library.  I can sit on the sofa using my Bluesound Node 2i and select songs and album using my iPhone.  The days of using vinyl and CD's in my opinion is over.  Who wants to pull out a record, wash the record and then pay a lot of money for an expensive turntable these days when digital streaming is available.

If you want a better analog conversion then buy an expensive DAC. 
robertwisconsin
9 posts
 
Have anyone of you actually calculated this? 
-Yes

What's your personal ratio? 
Software/Hardware= 2+

As per the reference of JG Holt, I always want to make this hobby about the music.. not the equipment.

Estimated via Discogs, using actual median sale prices of contemporary transactions, my 2000 (half vinyl) piece media collection has a value of $12K. Based on current transactions, I would estimate my fairly dated system (consisting of Linn, Rega, Audio Research, Bell Canto and Vandersteen elements) would sell for 6K. My media is actually more valuable than noted in that many items I know have value have no sales data on Discogs and my quality grades of vinyl are typically better than the mean sales item.

So as to "why own/play media" (and keep buying it) versus stream? For me:
1) I already own it
2) I have space to store it
3) I have memories attached to buying it or playing it in the past
4) Many tracks I enjoy are not available on streaming services
5) I have many LPs that really do sound "better" than the stream
6) I enjoy the artwork and liner details
7) It's fun to to find a $2 record for sale that is in fact rare and desirable that you know you will enjoy listening to and that you know you could sell for $10 or $20 or even $150 (yes I have had this luck)
8) in the case of LP, a little but of surface noise just doesn't bother me in the least, and in fact in many cases what you are hearing on clean older LP's is the tape hiss from the master tape!

On a different subject, this is my first post after lurking for two years. I would say that overall Audiogon, it its current form, is not for me. Why? It's never about the music, and even rarely really about the sound. Too much esoteric hardware tweaks and bickering. The latter being the real turn off for me. Where is the collegiality? Where in the conversation does the love for the sound and the music come in?

Comments welcome!

-Bob
robertwisconsin
9 posts
 
as a correction to my previous post, I should have said this was my first "serious, heartfelt post".  I have made a few comments in the past.

-Bob
audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
2,018 posts
 
What he said....👍
daveyf's avatar
daveyf
2,875 posts
 
I paired my collection down from about 15k records to just under 2K. The ones that are left are the usual collector pieces. I think now quality vs quantity. I know of a local collector who has just over 100K records, unfortunately he probably has no more than 50-100 that are collector pieces . The rest just take up a ton of space! Tons of quantity..and no quality. Lots of very large collections are like this IME.
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