Would you spend you money on modest brand new car or rather buy top notch vintage one?

For the question as asked it would depend on if I'm trying to get best performance or a cool piece if history that still performs well. I think the value is almost always used for audio equipment,  just how used do you go, and what you consider vintage. Reliability can be better new with electronics, but I think you need to have a plan for good technical support either way.  You can hope for the best used, or you have to learn about the manufacturer, design, components reliability, support, and parts availability.  As mentioned depends on the type of gear. I just got a tube amp that's 25 years old. It's a great amp for any year built, and not a quality level I could afford new. It's point to point wired and will pretty much be repairable indefinitely by any good tube amp tech with no printed circuit boards in it to go obsolete. Mine's in great condition,  but you can be anywhere between like new and a fire hazard, so you have to be more knowledgeable to go vintage, which is a burden. I bought a great used DAC at one-third of new price about 5-10 years old, but I don't think I'd want a vintage DAC,  if they exist yet. 

@wart That is fine if you don’t get it. You don’t have to respond back. But at least you should get the message that we are NOT TALKING ABOUT CARS as you can tell from the subtitle. The title was constructed as a catchy phrase in order to get your attention. When it comes to WE, Studer, Nagra EMT etc., they are not affordable used equipment option for most of you and we should ignore them for the purpose of this discussion. So, you see, it is not that difficult to get it unless you want to be on top of things and control the situation. Relax and smell the roses - can you get that?

@yoder Every thing we learn in live comes from long and accumulated knowledge. When it comes to audio, where do you think, todays best learn from? That’s why, as an audiophile, it might be important to learn from older, well engineered electronics as well. Now days, they are a lot of classic vintage gears priced as low as 20 cent on the dollar and this is before the inflation factor. When it comes to dac’s, I currently have modern Lampizator DAC/DSD but I still keep and like my Wadia from 1992 - still stock and working great. So, the moral of the story is that if you have knowledge and shop carefully one can find a gem among the see of just used gears. History is important and can be very useful as well.

Dude, lighten up…. @whart is a major dude and CAN afford the “ gears “…. and the gears and a $1m policy on audio is easy as pie…..

IF anyone needs an MX-110Z…get in touch…