What's up with the price of Vintage equipment?

@vitussl101 nailed it.  I was a freshman in high school in 1972. I and my buddy lusted after high end gear.  I had a Harmon Kardon 430 as my first "good" receiver, a Phillips turntable with highly cool (for the time) LED touch sensor buttons, and Electrovoice speakers.  I moved to Phase Linear separates in 1977.  I think that the yearning for vintage gear is based largely on nostalgia for the gear many lusted after in our youth.  I find it hard to believe that my old '70's gear can come close to my current system.  That would mean that all of the claimed improvements in wire, circuit design, capacitors, transistors, power supplies etc, through the present are meaningless, something I find hard to believe.  So if the vintage craze is field by nostalgia, pay whatever you think its worth.  If you are looking for great sound by today's standards, I would be surprised if vintage gear would be competitive.  Take ARC for example.  Many claim that the ARC REF 6, no slouch in the modern preamp department, is greatly improved by the new improvements to the SE version.  So from 1974 through the present, the REF 6SE isn't a big improvement over the ARC 1974 preamps?  Hard to believe.

So I was in Des Moines Iowa a few weeks back taking care of funeral arrangements for a relative.  While there I stopped into a place called Skylabs Audio in a kind of eclectic shopping area in Valley Junction, a vintage audio dealer.  The owner makes dozens of videos on YouTube so I thought what the hell, it was Saturday, check it out.  Very small, a one showroom operation with a small collection of stuff.  The shoppers were mainly young and I spoke to a few, basically looking for their first stereo system(kudos to them) and buying new and used records.  They told me that there's not to much choice in Des Moines for real audio equipment  What surprised me was they had playing a Yamaha 2020 receiver and Advent speakers.  My older brother has these in college and I remember back then how much I loved his system.  Today?  I don't know, $1500.00 for the receiver and I don't remember the speaker's price but you're talking about two grand and change.  I could definitely do much better today with that amount.  

@moto_man

I had that Phillips turntable. Loved it. Besides the cool lighted buttons, the arm on it was actually pretty good. Although, once the electrics went on it, it was not worth fixing.

I had a friend who had the Phase Linear stuff back in the 70's, along with a Emprire turntable. Talk about lust...... 

I would agree the 70's stuff can't match today's technology. 

@deadhead1000 On flip side, I’ve had my parents 70’s album collection for decades and finally assembled a system two years ago. I tried various new gear but went with good, all original 70’s gear (except stylus), not SOTA but holds its own. More importantly, new gear is no match to me when visualizing my Dad getting up to put on his favourite T.Rex album on gear he would have used…time travel is priceless. 

Yeah I sold and heard most all of it back then. I’ll pass. Some neat nostalgia items but that’s about it.