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The Case for a Curated Hi-Fi Marketplace Built for the Die-Hards

This thread got me thinking, and I'll throw something out there that I suspect a few others have quietly considered.

What if we actually built something better?

Not a knock on Audiogon or USAM — both serve a purpose — but neither was really designed for the serious end of this hobby. The audience here includes people running $50K, $100K, $200K+ systems. We're talking CH Precision, VAC, Basis Audio, Wilson, dCS, Nagra. Gear that deserves more than a blurry iPhone photo, a two-line description, and a listing that auto-expires in 30 days next to an ad for a $79 Bluetooth speaker.

Here's what I'd actually want to see:

**Flat $15 listing fee. No tiers, no commissions, no time limits.** Pay once, it stays up until it sells or you pull it. The current commission model on high-dollar gear is indefensible — a percentage of a $15,000 DAC sale is not a service, it's a toll.

**High-resolution photography as a platform standard.** Not a feature — a requirement. Multiple angles, macro shots of any wear, photos of original packaging if included. If you can't show it properly, you can't list it. Serious buyers make decisions on photography. This single change would separate the platform from everything else out there.

**Brick and mortar dealers list free.** Always. A curated dealer presence — not banner ads, actual inventory — gives the platform legitimacy and gives small independent shops a fighting chance against the grey market. Their trade-ins and demo pieces are exactly what serious buyers are looking for: known provenance, usually impeccably maintained, often with remaining warranty.

**A dealer clearinghouse for demo and trade-in gear.** Separate, searchable, clearly flagged. This is untapped inventory that currently trickles out through inconsistent channels. Centralize it.

**A community board that actually requires skin in the game.** Read-only access for guests. Participation requires a verified listing history or a one-time membership fee. Keeps it from becoming a free audio consulting service for people who have no intention of buying anything.

The model only works if the community that populates it is self-selecting toward serious participants. The $15 listing fee isn't really about revenue — it's a filter. People who won't spend $15 to list a $5,000 phono stage aren't your target audience anyway. Neither are the folks who show up to ask how a cartridge sounds and disappear when it's time to actually pull the trigger.

I'm genuinely curious if there's appetite for this here. The talent, the taste, and frankly the gear to make something like this worth building clearly exists in this community. The question is whether anyone wants to be part of something more intentional than what we currently have.

Would love to hear what others think the non-negotiables would be.

73cuttysupreme
73cuttysupreme OP
47 posts
 

You can take communications off site with Agon if you pay upfront.  if you do the small bit but larger fee after it sells, you cannot take it off site.  I get why they do that, they are protecting themselves from those that would just list, then complete the transaction off platform.  They're protecting their revenue stream.  But that just goes back to another reason why I am looking at building this out.  the fee structure is inherently jacked.  Straight up one time listing fee, do what you want, no expiration.  I've dealt with users on both platforms that even when offering their asking price they still don't sell.  They just are looking to see what they could get.  Once again, another reason there's room for a different platform.

 

73cuttysupreme OP
47 posts
 

Also, hyperlinks, photos, movies, any digital asset will be able to be posted up, and fully searchable.  Maybe someone has a copy of an old Marantz 9b circuit schematic and a user has a question about a resistor value to replace and would like to share.  Right now, you can't do that on either platform, at least easily like drag and drop.

73cuttysupreme OP
47 posts
 

I already have the AWS infra set up.  working on some app functionality.  Next up is auth.  all pretty easy.  I will be allowing google and Apple ID authentication and initial profile prepopulation.  You can also just do username and password.  I will also enable passkey functionality, and a native mobile app will come at some point.  Until that's available, there will be an Android and IOS optimized mobile site, for both tablet and phone form factors.  No trackers.  I will be using a SDK on initial browser sessions to instrument any performance issues on individual user sessions.  No PII is tracked, just a device ID and trace information on load times, tracking any errors, etc.

73cuttysupreme OP
47 posts
 

I whipped everything up yesterday in Terraform.  Going to do some initial failover testing for the session state and other DBs.  I'll be serving it out of US-East-1 (Ashburn, VA) to start, but will regionalize East/West for faster load times.  

terraform/

├── providers.tf — AWS provider + S3 backend config

├── variables.tf — All input variables

├── main.tf — Root module wiring all modules together

├── outputs.tf — Key endpoint/ID outputs

├── terraform.tfvars.example

└── modules/

├── networking/ — VPC, 3-AZ public/private/DB subnets, NAT GWs, VPC endpoints

├── secrets/ — Secrets Manager (DB password autogen, Stripe keys)

├── aurora/ — PostgreSQL Serverless v2, writer + reader instances

├── redis/ — ElastiCache Redis 7 (TLS encrypted)

├── opensearch/ — t3.small domain, VPC-private, fine-grained access control

├── s3_cloudfront/ — Frontend bucket, raw-uploads, processed-photos, CloudFront dist

├── lambda/ — Photo processor (S3 trigger, placeholder zip, VPC)

├── cognito/ — User Pool (email/MFA), App Client, Identity Pool (S3 upload scope)

├── ses/ — Domain identity, DKIM/SPF/DMARC records, config set

├── route53/ — Hosted zone, apex/www/api records, ACM certs

├── ecs/ — Cluster, Fargate task def, ALB, autoscaling (CPU+memory), ECS Exec

├── waf/ — Regional WAF (ALB) + CloudFront WAF, rate limits on API + auth

├── security/ — GuardDuty, AWS Config, Security Hub (CIS + Foundational standards)

└── monitoring/ — CloudWatch alarms (ECS/ALB/Aurora/Redis), dashboard, SNS alerts

thecarpathian's avatar
thecarpathian
6,087 posts
 

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