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

Reviews might drive the market for some to most ...but it’s the listening on one’s own that counts.

But, such a reasonable statement does not affect a principally review driven market, where physical audition has gone the way of the dodo bird.

The proffered highly reviewed device.. may not be the best suited for the end buyer who buys by the review, and they’ll never know anything about that.

In the end, advertising might and reviews win out, except for the wise, observant and the intrepid.

What this means, is that, the final zero sum mean...is..mediocre gear tends to be the biggest selling and most highly praised gear.

Especially when we get to the most expensive items. Having money does not automatically infer a superior hearing ability and mindset for discerning quality audio. There is some tendency in that direction, but only some.

eg, in the world of cycling, the vast number of extremely expensively outfitted bicycles are sold to people who really can’t ride them. Same for golf clubs, extreme cars, and so on.

Perfection is not even close to being the market norm or center. When Richard Feynman was asked to explain His Nobel to a reporter, Feynman's replay was: I was given the Nobel because I can't explain it to you. 

The same goes for true perfectionist audio, compared to the mean of the market.

sfcfran - I totally agree.  I had higher expectations mostly because the Vega is still currently sold/produced, and although the retail price is still $3495 it is always on sale now for $2799. My asking price point was about 1/3 lower than the current price and I was trying to net about half of current MSRP.  When I look to buy a used  item that is still in current production, I don't expect to get it for 50-60% off and I'm not seeing those kinds of offers here or on eBay. If you believe what you read the Vega  compares favorably to the $5-6K DACs sold a couple years back.  

teo_audio - you are right on that it is near impossible to audition many of these high end items even at the dealers that carry them.  I bought the Vega from an Auralic dealer but they didn't have one set up to audition and they had to order it for me.  I bought strictly off internet reviews.  I was not unhappy with the unit at all (other than I did not like it's aesthetics) - I sold it because I had sold my Cary CD/DAC player a year earlier and almost immediately regretted it - I recently came across (locally) another Cary CD Player/DAC and went that direction.  For my ears the DACs that Cary designs in their CD players are as good as it gets in my price range.  

Another consideration is this: ever notice how stock in dollar store goes up in a recession when all the other retailers go down? It’s about affordability and penny pinching in troubled times, amd comfort in spending in good times. Better example might be the used car market. In the last recession auto manufacturers couldn’t sell new cars to save their lives and put in huge rebates to try and get it moving....didn’t help...so they cut back massively on units built tI’ll things recovered. During that time auto zone and other parts stores were busy as could be, amd used car values were going UP. My point is, in good times people will buy new audio gear if they need it, amd if they have real money, they will buy new if they want it.  But in troubled economic times, the market will move somewhat to used audio.  Not to the extent of cars, as that is a necessity, but to a notable extent in its own right.  
All of our responses here have merrit, and no 1 thing is responsible for what is happening....it is all of these things over the past 5 years building into 1 perfect storm we are now seeing.

I have a small retail business for past 2 years - I am still not sure if the economy all that good despite the stock market - lol.  There are at least 2 types of high end audio equipment buyers (and this mimics our society) - those that have enough money that it does not matter what the cost of the equipment is and those (such as myself) that enjoys the hobby but cannot afford most new equipment or even most of the used equipment.  So for me the status of the economy is irrelevant.  As an example - I may have $8K (which is a lot of money to most of us) to spend on my entire system.  In my instance I Iook for highly regarded used equipment that is 3-5 years old - maybe 90% of current technology but at 30-40% of current price.  You can build a nice system that way (you can end up with $20-25K equipment for that budget) - but always be a few years behind current, and that is very important to many.   If I had $15K to spend I might buy used equipment 1-2 years old, or using the same thoughts end up with used equipment that had original prices of $40K.  

I'm definitely there with you on that jimman.  With the exception of the about to happen electrical feed upgrades I'm working on, and my disc spinner, everything in my system is preowned, bank auctioned or maufacturers close out.  Now if only we could turn a new generation on to the same, we'd effectively abolish the topic of this thread