Buying used vs new?

I agree about buying used being the way to go to get more for the $$. However I would reconsider units less than 1 yr old which do not have a transferrable warranty. I bought a used amp from a gentleman who had good feedback. I thought it was a good deal considering it was just about 1 yr old. He said he had been away for the previous 6 mos. and that he had another system which got more play. So the amp didn’t have that many hrs on it. Great.. So I got the amp and it didn’t take long to realize that the amp & tubes were not even broke in yet. OK, that was a plus...or so I thought until a month or so ;later when powering the amp up, I heard a thud, whereby my wife said, "What was that?"

One of the Nature series Shuguang KT88 tubes had blown. Not just that, it took out a power supply. The mfg / bldr was very generous with his help but bottom line is that it was not in warranty cause I bought used. He described it as a catastrophic tube failure due to its ability to bypass the fuse meant to protect from this. That cost me about $500 to fix with the shipping which isn’t cheap to Canada.

This could happen to any amp I suppose. However I believe electronics are more prone to have problems during break in period, I suspect normal operation by the original owner may have shown the weakness during the warranty period and have been repaired under warranty instead on my out of pocket. Live and learn. Its a great amp BTW

A good piece is a good piece and buying used can save you a fortune for sure, hope it works out for you, also one thing to consider is that the component is broken in with a used piece which can sometimes take hundreds of hours before it sounds correct.

I’ve ALWAYS bought stuff used. Why pay the full freight?

If it’s a POS, then half off is not a good deal.

if it's something without functionality you want, then half off is not a good deal. 

Because it's impossible to differentiate between used and abused.