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

@ghasley 

All of your points do little to address the fact that the change in the used HEA market has occurred recently. What accounts for this broad change? Why has the free market changed so drastically in such a short period?
The old idea of 'flipping' gear now seems to be a whole lot more difficult. 
OTOH, I would certainly keep that Motorola Bag phone you mention...soon it will be worth some serious $$ to a collector, LOL.

HEA, in general,  has NOT delivered on its reason for being defined as -  providing the means for enjoying our music fully and with complete contentment. HEA delivers on some well recorded stuff, but in general has not delivered what we want and desire. Couple that with the silly high pricing we see today and you have the reason for HEA collapsing.  The shrinking market has brought on accelerated price increases as manufacturers milk what they can from the shrinking market. This is the classic sign of a product category in the decline phase of the product life cycle.  We are now living in this decline phase. 

The good news is innovation is bringing new home audio products to the market that are right priced and frankly better than what HEA has delivered in the past. 

I am talking about the core market of audiophiles here.  We are not as interested in turning and churning through gear anymore. We have been there and done that enough now and realize all these traditional HEA products don’t and won’t satisfy long term. No way we are spending big money on it now. We are not buying used gear like we used to.  This is why stuff is selling so darn slow if at all. If we decide to try one more piece it better be at a steal, I mean steal of a price. This is driving the prices down. We are a small group we Core Aphiles and we are causing this to happen.  We are the market.  

@ghasley 

"I also aspired to do better and I never recall feeling resentment when others were prospering disproportionately better than I was. Just because everyone can’t afford whatever they want doesn’t make it unfair but it does create opportunities for all of us to weigh our choices more carefully."

Not wanting to sound accusatory, but this point does at least sometimes seem to be the content of these type of threads. 

Grannyring appears to be right. The hobby we so love is shrinking and it seems to be gathering speed toward that end.

@grannyring

You bring up a good point about most of the recordings. While it is true that most of the recordings are in many ways lacking, I would think there are enough that the hobby should have enough great content for some extended period. However, I certainly agree that the vast majority of recordings are truly sub par....unable to truly capture the sound of a cymbal, or a snare brush, or a piano etc., This has undoubtedly lead to many listeners in the hobby blaming the gear and losing interest overall.
Plus, the questionable quality control in the record industry still seems to be an ongoing factor. Pathetic in this day and age if you think about it, IMO.