??? Established Manufacturer or Take A Chance ???

Mostly small scale boutique manufacturers for me. Point to point wiring and DHT pre's and amps, so more elemental circuits which means easier diy repairs if ever needed. Low heat with these components as well, heat the enemy of reliability. 

Also, virtually none of the large scale manufacturers offer components that fit my needs or desires, SET and DHT are virtually exclusive domain of small scale manufacturers. The other thing I like about small scale is I can always directly communicate with the owner/designer of equipment.

It depends on what your appetite for struggling to resell the product is and how much of a financial hit you're willing to take. No name brands, even if well reviewed sure are harder to resell because now your audience is limited to appealing to only the few other people like you who want to save money and buy no name rather than buy from a known entitly. Look at Odyssey as an example. Good product, gets a few credible reviews here and there, made by one guy essentially and if you buy a new amp from them for $2k you're lucky if you can sell it a year later for $700. 

@speedthrills 

Year-old Odyssey monoblocks for $700? I’ll take ’em! How many do you have?

@freediver wrote:

[...] Do you pony up & buy from the well established makers or do you take a chance on a new to the industry maker & save some coin?

Except for my D/A-converter I now only buy products from the pro sector. Despite all of them being well established brands - be that (the previous) Electro-Voice, B&C, JBL, MC² Audio, Marian and Xilica/ACX - they can be had new and used at prices that, relative to the very high quality all around, are way below those asked for products in the hifi/high-end arena that are shooting at the same quality level. Those who don't have unbiased, firsthand experience with high quality pro gear in a home audio environment wouldn't know of course, but all the more reason - for whatever it's worth - to then share the experience from someone who has.

So, I go for well established brands, but in my case it doesn't equate into ludicrous level prices.

$ 700./ pr  ???  A few credible reviews ?????

Well,  maybe for a 20 + years old pair....in general,  the Odyssey used pricing is between 60 - 75 % of new.....holding their value pretty much better than most.  Also,  there are used ones popping up that were built last century !!!!   So,  pricing has to be adjusted for age,  obviously.

And keep in mind that the one guy has managed as a family business to put out over 11,000  total products,  so the available used gear   is a comically small percentage.

And as for the credible reviews, ( and thanks for mentioning them)  the last 6 of them all resulted in product of the year awards.  So yeah,  credible I guess.......