Excellent idea...but I'll throw out a potential issue that may be of concern. I recently purchased an amp that had one bannana hole that was too large to get a nice contact. The previous owner may not have known this, but the buyer can only hope that a seller is completely honest to the best of their knowledge. In short, a seller might not have anyway of knowing that something was wrong with some aspect of a component that was never used (consider a faulty phono stage on an amp owned by someone without a TT). I have no suggestions on how to remedy this, I only suggest that it might cause unintended friction between buyer and otherwise very honest seller in some cases.
Modest proposal, change the Audiogon rating system
I wanted to foreward a proposal for enhancing the Audiogon system of rating components. We have seen many instances of components being incorrectly graded both in the dispute resolution forums and anecdotally. I have personally experienced this. I believe that some of this stems from the emphasis in the grading guidelines being put on cosmetic issues. While cosmetics are critical to the product and greatly affect resale value, we do not listen to them. My proposal is to keep the current system as it is with the current grade referred to as a "cosmetic grade" beneath it would be a second grade referred to as a "functional grade". This grade would be used to grade the functional aspects of the gear. For example, if the volume control is scratchy in a preamp, or one of the inputs is intermittent it would get a less than perfect grade. Tuners in less than perfect alignment too would be downgraded. CD players that occasionally skip or sometimes have loading issues would also count. Hiss and hum likewise. Buzzing speakers as well. Of course, all of this should be spelled out in the body of the ad, but as the community grows, grading issues are becoming more problematic. If a product had a "functional rating" of 8, one might be prompted to ask the seller why, just as one does with cosmetic issues. If disputes occur between buyer and seller, this grading will be one more tool to aid in the resolution of the issue. The whole shootin' match would not be at all hard for Audiogon to implement, which I am sure is their main concern regarding site enhancements. So, whaddaya think?