Top resale value speakers

Unless you make a very foolish purchase, you can anticipate something close to 100% resale by buying used speakers. This applies to virtually all brands and models, current production thru classics.

I bought a used pair of Maggie 2.7QRs almost 3 years ago here on Audiogon for $1,000 (going price then was $900 to $1200 depending on condition). This speaker is now going for the same price. I think Maggies are one of the leading resale champs. Quad and Soundlab are probably 2 more.

S7horton, I don't think that you'll get a dealer to come down more than 10% on the Maggie 1.6's. As I stated, Maggie selects their dealers rather carefully, and the dealer mark-up is nowhere near what their mark-up can be for most other speakers.

It is impossible to know the various discounts available on all speaker brands but it is well known that Magnepan does not discount much at all, whether due to low margin to begin with or factory control, I am not sure. But I think this factor has a lot to do with Maggies holding resale.

The argument can be extended by (in theory at least) getting enough data on selling vs list price of all speakers when new. Then, compare the resale value of these at a future point in time, assuming (again in theory) equal condition. I am guessing the result of comparing used resale to new discounted price will be much closer (ie clustered) than you might expect for 80% of all brands.

Similar models can apply to the car biz. For years, M-B held up value as there was no discount available. Since they started discounting a few years ago, resale value has dropped and it varies by model, which variance corresponds quite closely to the selling discount by model.