Anybody having trouble getting near-your-asking-price for used gear ? (Plz. no hype)


I buy and sell gear "on a whim" and have done so for 40 years. Mostly high-end tube stuff that I get an itch to move from my rig to make room for other high-end stuff that I have been dreaming of.  It's fun and gives me a fresh faces to fall in and out of love with.

Lately I am having a really hard time getting any serious offers above 1/4 to 1/3 of retail- actually zero offers over that. And winter is the time of year gear sells. Once the sun comes out things get really quiet.  Not terribly long ago I could ask 50% of retail and get serious offers pretty close to the ask.  

I am especially having trouble selling ARC gear. It's prices are steadily collapsing. On HiFi Shark that stuff sits for close to a year (or more) before it moves.  For example SP 15s are under 2K now. They were selling (not asking) at 3K a year ago. It took me almost a year to sell a new-in--box I/50 for $3000 (!)   Ref 75s are moving under $3000 and TMR will only offer 2K for one of them. The older stuff is selling in the hundreds not the thousands. Top-Of the-line stuff like Reference 10 preamps are moving under 12K (asking is around 17K) 

I recently sold a Bryston BR-20 brand new in the box and it took me 7 months to get 48% of MSRP.  This is NEW stuff- not somebody's junk. 

My guy at Magnepan told me their stuff is really moving slowly as well. He blamed it on the political environment. ARC is pretending all is well but I have a little birdie inside there that tells me their stuff is stagnant as and dealers are actually cancelling orders. 

Now, assuming you are being honest and not "fluffing the market" with bullbleep because you have something for sale and hoping for the greater fool,  are you seeing/experiencing the same thing I am experiencing? 

NO RETAILERS PLESASE- you guys tend to "exaggerate" to put it kindly- plus most of us here at AG know who you are and your 1000s of posts are a big clue. 

Signed/ Depressed about my favorite side gig. 

128x128Ag insider logo xs@2xyesiam_a_pirate

I have bought a couple of things used at around 60% of the typical selling price. They were like new and only a year, or two, old.  I like older gear, but I've had caps go bad in an amp and had trouble with a c-j preamp that I bought used due to its age (I returned it).

I recently sold a dac that was less than 2 years old and only got around 50% of what I paid for it new. 

 

@yesiam_a_pirate   Perhaps TMR had something to do with it. One can buy used with return privileges. Yes, you probably pay more for that, but it gives the buyer peace of mind. Your lowball offers may be coming from resellers such as yourself.

I would agree with the basic premise, but ARC is a poor example as they have had issues related to the various sales of the company, and matters of financing, that are not typical of all high end companies. IMHO, they are viewed as damaged goods by some at this juncture. So there are things unique to this company that are not reflective of the broader secondary market.

I have this theory that sounds good on paper, but I don’t know if it would work in practice. If You were to donate all your used gear to a young person that that would get more people into this hobby. Then with the avalanche of new music aficionado‘s, they will go out and buy. Which will in turn cause companies to ramp up their production. Think how cheap a Macintosh amplifier would be if they had to make 1 million of them.