Would you buy a piece of gear with a defect?

NO unless $1500 is like throwing away 5 cents to you.

Today I sold some Thiel COAX drivers and 1 of the drivers has a tweeter issue. Buyer is aware and can fix it. I am selling the drivers for 1/3 the price new.

@czbbcl I still have my SCD-1 going strong, love this player There is a poster, @TomThiel that is looking to fix his SCD-1 you may want to ask him if he is looking for parts.

Would never buy something with issues.

A new JC2 BP is like 4500. If you were patient, a used one could come up at some point for 2500-3000.

1500 for a broken unit is a little high for me. You have no idea what is wrong. It could be something cheap or extremely expensive.


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True
But if Ben has a  local tech geek who is fair, honest, as we do here in the New Orleans area, Richard Gray who will give us best advice,, then he should ask his tech geek, If no tech geek avaliable, then Ben is on his own, Issue might bea  simply fix, maybe worse. 
I'd  tell Ben to buy it and ship it to RGray to ck it out. 
This is what I would advise. 
You say used @ $3k, here it is at $1500 = bargin. 

My Sunfire 600 signature was a B stock unit.  Unused for a substantial price.
had some loose screws on the transformer.
 Sent to two places, first sent to Bill Flannery’s for look see,..replaced some caps, new front meter light, said “is this unit new?” Yes it is, he said there were no signs of use at all.
  Then to sounds classic in Rockford, ILL 
replaced all screws, tightened perfect!
added a thick rubber mat to the top, between the cover and top of transformer. Been flawless since. A great amplifier!