Ridiculous resale price of vintage equiment


The price of used vintage is downright beyond ridiculous nowadays.

It seems like many hispters are buying crap based on the looks and many flippers are happily milking them.

As an audiophile and collector this really pisses me off... sure I could sell my collection for stratospheric numbers but then what would I do with my hobby?

When I see good looking stuff, like an ARC D70 MkII selling for as much as a crappy sounding, unrestored Marantz 2240.. well, I croak. Heck, I gave one of those away because they are not very good.

Today I was comparing my really recently rebuilt ( and I mean, really rebuilt, not just "recapped" ) Marantz 2325 and Sansui G-7500. The Marantz is dark but warm, the Sansui,which sounds a lot better than the Marantz, paints a nice musical landscape but has no real depth, etc... I gave them both the best chance, driving them from the pre-out of my CJ preamp so they are getting an outstanding source... and yet, well, they sound vintage.

Is the Marantz worth $2500? Is the Sansui worth $1500? From an audiophile point of view, nope. They look good, but my DIY Aleph 5 monos, my ARC D70 MkII, and a bunch of my other amps/preamps sound far better... and yet, they are not overpriced.

OK, except for the buffoon in eBay who was asking for $26K for his Pass Aleph 2 amps.

At least the poseurs have not found Quad yet.

What do you think? Are these prices interfering with your hobby?  

esporma

Showing 2 responses by jim5559

Economics is what the super-rich tell the Government what it is ! NO JOKE ,

My first year at Uni I took both Econ 101 and Logic 101 .

I was going nuts as one totally made the other a lie .

Went up to Econ Prof and told him my thoughts .

 

He looked at me for about a minute and nicely said to me , ": Yes, Econ is a mess but one decided upon " .

 

P,S . at one time I sold Sansui in a huge audio store in Madison , WI .

We sold 15 % of all those amps in the world !

Why ? owner let us sell FAR cheaper than any in USA . I would rather have one , or 2, of the Sansui today than anything else , The tuners were unreal !

As were the 823 TT’s . Speakers sucked , but Rockers loved them.

As did AR, Altec , KLH, Polk 10 , , Advent and others.

 

Once sold 5 full Sansui systems to 5 players of Green Bay Football Team , went fast and ! made 700$ which was a lot 50 years ago .

 

It can tell you 2x4 ain’t 5 which can be helpful .

90% of cut your head off guys would not have a Foundation which was not taxed at 5%. .