Anybody having trouble getting near-your-asking-price for used gear ? (Plz. no hype)


I buy and sell gear "on a whim" and have done so for 40 years. Mostly high-end tube stuff that I get an itch to move from my rig to make room for other high-end stuff that I have been dreaming of.  It's fun and gives me a fresh faces to fall in and out of love with.

Lately I am having a really hard time getting any serious offers above 1/4 to 1/3 of retail- actually zero offers over that. And winter is the time of year gear sells. Once the sun comes out things get really quiet.  Not terribly long ago I could ask 50% of retail and get serious offers pretty close to the ask.  

I am especially having trouble selling ARC gear. It's prices are steadily collapsing. On HiFi Shark that stuff sits for close to a year (or more) before it moves.  For example SP 15s are under 2K now. They were selling (not asking) at 3K a year ago. It took me almost a year to sell a new-in--box I/50 for $3000 (!)   Ref 75s are moving under $3000 and TMR will only offer 2K for one of them. The older stuff is selling in the hundreds not the thousands. Top-Of the-line stuff like Reference 10 preamps are moving under 12K (asking is around 17K) 

I recently sold a Bryston BR-20 brand new in the box and it took me 7 months to get 48% of MSRP.  This is NEW stuff- not somebody's junk. 

My guy at Magnepan told me their stuff is really moving slowly as well. He blamed it on the political environment. ARC is pretending all is well but I have a little birdie inside there that tells me their stuff is stagnant as and dealers are actually cancelling orders. 

Now, assuming you are being honest and not "fluffing the market" with bullbleep because you have something for sale and hoping for the greater fool,  are you seeing/experiencing the same thing I am experiencing? 

NO RETAILERS PLESASE- you guys tend to "exaggerate" to put it kindly- plus most of us here at AG know who you are and your 1000s of posts are a big clue. 

Signed/ Depressed about my favorite side gig. 

128x128Ag insider logo xs@2xyesiam_a_pirate

@tomrk I have been to a lot of college student apartments in the last 4 years due to my son's being in College. They ALL had way more than headphones. 

ALL had 2 channel speakers. About half of them active.

Some had all in one music systems, streamers, many had receivers and a few amplifiers, DACs and about a 4th of them had turntables!!!! 

btw it's incredible that we no longer can state facts even on this forum because it will be labeled political and will hurt people's feelings. Even if we say "price of x audio gear will increase due to tariffs." - the thread will be deleted. 
We are in a truly dark age similar to what my parents grew up in during the 50s in the darkest phase of Communism when you had to call a monster a beauty pageant.

While the old trope about the hobby dying is getting tedious, there is no doubt that it is changing, and so it should.

I’m a big fan of big floorstanders but let’s face it, they have a lot in common with dinosaurs at this point.

 

Of course, it's big floorstanders. What else can realistically reproduce what was recorded? They are not dinosaurs, dinosaurs are those people who don't understand it.

We are in a truly dark age similar to what my parents grew up in during the 50s in the darkest phase of Communism when you had to call a monster a beauty pageant.

@grislybutter 

Well... today we call beauty pageants monsters, so, same words, different order 😂

Seriously, the negative reactions to tariff posts may owe more to boredom and weariness than anything else.