Would you rent a $14,000 DAC for $75 per day?

@thecarpathian the liability contract lensrentals.com uses is good. It puts an emphasis on the lessee handling the gear with care. If the lessee is negligent and breaks something, they’d be on the hook to pay for repairs performed by a 3rd party or internally. Lessee can limit their liability by purchasing affordable insurance coverage. As far as a tax paying entity, I’d have to make some real money first, but yes if I generated income I’d form an LLC and pay taxes appropriately. Side benefit- a $14,000 DAC would then be considered a business purchase, a $14,000 tax write off to offset income from the business. 
 

Side tangent - I truly appreciate all the feedback, you’ve made valid points that I didn’t previously consider. However, I’m not dissuaded. When I started real estate investing 10 years ago, family and friends pointed out all the things that could go wrong, but I did it anyway. “Tenants won’t pay and there’s nothing you can do about it! They’ll destroy your property! Debt is risky!” But I still pursued it. And it’s one of the best decisions of my life. It’s allowed me to retire decades early and brainstorm other hair-brained business ideas;)

Not saying this is the same as real estate (RE appreciates). But folks, you can rent virtually anything - cars, dump trailers, DJ equipment, $50k RED cinema cameras, boats, Ferraris, someone’s personal house, etc. Seems like the only thing you can’t rent is hifi gear. 
 

The odds of me doing that are the same as a cable maker admitting their products make no difference in objective testing.

I remember the days when there were any number of local or near local dealers with whom I could home demo for free (security deposit required), certainly a valuable service. I too see many possible negatives with this, I'd never be one on either side of this transaction, but who knows it could work, start a whole new business model for audiophiles to afford systems they couldn't otherwise afford. CableCo. and their lending library is example of business model that works for cable rentals.

Where did that idea come from? What's the rationale?

Many vendors have some sort of trial period, typically 30 days. The only thing for customer to pay is potentially return shipping. At $75/day, that is $27K/year, so about twice the purchase price.

For something like a party rental, nobody needs that kind of a DAC. 

So again, what is the business plan/rationale?

Right now, outside of local dealer lending, we have two choices to hear stuff in our homes.  Both go better with some up front research to make sure you have an idea of what you want first.

1. Buy something and sell it if it doesn’t work out for you, or
2. Buy something from a dealer (or manufacturer-direct) that offers a trial/return period.

The lending thing has issues that most would believe outweigh any positives, including:

• Shipping/insurance costs, as already pointed out,
• Potential damage from shipping or mishandling/user error,
• Insufficient up front fees (i.e., security deposit) to inhibit scamming or theft by bad actors,
• People keeping the item beyond the agreed-on time interval, and
• Capital invested and tied up in gear, that could otherwise generate income through much less risky investments,
• Gear that sits around generating no income because few want to pay to audition, and
• The gear continues to depreciate in value.

It seems a better option is to simply sell stuff you are not using.  If you miss it, then buy another one of the same thing.  Many of us have done that, at least once.