Denafrips Ares II - Why did you sell?

I think it’s one of the best dacs anywhere near its price point. I’ve had many dacs in the last 3 years and the Ares II can stand on its own again dacs up to $2k. 
 

I only sold mine because I had unexpected and hefty water damage repair bills to take care of, and I had to sell my second system. I will buy another Ares as soon as I’m able to. This dac cuts the right balance between analytical dacs like the RME and tube dacs like Audio Mirror Tubadour 3. I also found it to be better, of course based on my purely subject opinion, than Chord Qutest. 

I started a thread a little while back on why I sold my Ares II.

I sold mine at the start of the year, as I felt it didn’t justify its cost, and SQ performance in my system, against the internal DAC of the Bluesound Node (2021 model).

In hindsight, I may have been a little hasty in selling. I won’t go into why here, but iirc a couple of posters pointed out possible flaws in my A/B methods.

Since then I’ve bought a new DAC from a tiny 2-man operation here in the UK making hand made DACs to order. As they do not advertise, use no marketing or sell to retail outlets, they are able to sell their products at great prices.

Do I regret letting my Denafrips go; yeah, kind of. But if I hadn’t I probably wouldn’t have purchased the DAC I have now, or modded my Node, which has been a great experience. Also, I used the proceeds from the sale to buy my REL sub. 

Given the value that most popular used hifi products retain, I'm guessing that many people are buying new (or gently used) Ares II's and other DACs for trial purposes, knowing that if it's not their cup of tea, they can easily flip them without losing much.

If I were in the market for a new DAC, I might be inclined scoop up a selection of Denafrips, Schiit, Mytek, Topping, etc that I found on the used market, knowing that I can sell them easily and only be out shipping and paypal fees.

@djspinner i think that's a good point. It's what I did. I bought the Ares II pre-owned and sold it again for the same price I bought it for, minus PayPal charge of course. 

The Aries II (which I have) hold their value extremely well. I could at least sell mine for what I paid for it, if not more. Thus, I think it would be easy to sell it knowing that you will get your entire investment back, (and not take a 30-50% hit like most components), and move up to the Pontus, or another ‘even better’ DAC.

I think there are many who will like the idea of buying these used ‘locally’ vs new, albeit I don’t think the wait for a new one is all that bad.