What's happened to the used high end market recently?? Sales are tough....:0(


The heading says it all!! What do you guys think is the reason that the sales in the used high end market have gone soft??
Prices too high? Economy too slow?? Stock market too volatile?? Something else??

Thoughts....
daveyf
Yes, the size of the market continues to age and ebb away. It’s not gonna get any easier. In fact with the economy rolling right now, this may be as good as it gets by far.

Some new blood is coming up from the high-end headphone crowd, but it’s not feeding into 2ch staples like speakers and monoblocks (maybe just DACs, at best). And Audiogon lost a good chunk of its traffic to the site rewrite some years ago -- older folks don’t like to adapt to tech, and get easily/permanently frustrated. Maybe they should’ve kept both systems up while they refined the new site (which I do like, now that the bugs have been worked out).

But also, a lot of sellers don’t seem to have a clue that they’re pricing items way too high. You gotta be realistic, and the #s you find in the BlueBook/etc are often FAR off a sellable price. And the worst trap is getting stuck holding the bag with at item that was a "flavor of the month" flash in the pan. A couple years on, and you may find you can’t even give it away.
Millennials. I don't think many of them buy new or used HEA. The older generation audiophiles are dying off. Most of the younger generation I talk to have little to no interest in HEA. They like music mostly of the portable variety and seem to listen more as a distraction than anything else. I do believe there are a few younger ones out there that like HEA, but no where near enough to support the hobby. JMHO.
High end audio may also have a bit of a credibility problem especially with newbies given some of the nonsense that goes around in forums like this.  This can't help. 
mapman, are you wearing your “engineer’s” hat  when you make that statement? I’m sure the newbies are eternally grateful for your diligence and watchfulness. 🤡