The answer: a hair more than the current average asking price of a pair of Avantgarde Duos with subs in the U.S. Whether that qualifies them (or me) as "cheap" is more about context.
The context: 1) Every other pair (save one) that I have seen for sale, before or since, anywhere in the world, has been offered at 60-120% more than what I paid. The sole exception was more like 30-40% more. 2) I ran into my pair at a used equipment dealer, who had bought them from another dealer (whom I also know), who had beeen trying to sell them for almost two years; this dealer had bought them from a person who had bought them new in 1996 (at the same time he bought an all-Jadis set-up from another dealer I know). Japanese home design does not generally allow use of speakers like this, so any dealer who buys them in Japan is going to have to buy them cheap because they are not going to be able to get rid of them easily, even if they took a zero off the end of the price. Neither the dealer who bought them from their customer nor the dealer from whom I bought them had the space to actually set them up as required.
The context: 1) Every other pair (save one) that I have seen for sale, before or since, anywhere in the world, has been offered at 60-120% more than what I paid. The sole exception was more like 30-40% more. 2) I ran into my pair at a used equipment dealer, who had bought them from another dealer (whom I also know), who had beeen trying to sell them for almost two years; this dealer had bought them from a person who had bought them new in 1996 (at the same time he bought an all-Jadis set-up from another dealer I know). Japanese home design does not generally allow use of speakers like this, so any dealer who buys them in Japan is going to have to buy them cheap because they are not going to be able to get rid of them easily, even if they took a zero off the end of the price. Neither the dealer who bought them from their customer nor the dealer from whom I bought them had the space to actually set them up as required.