The Music Room

They're very good to deal with. I have purchased used gear and their descriptions were accurate. They won't negotiate price, but will will pay a fair price on trade ins.

I've bought and done trade-ins over the past few years and been very pleased with the outcome.

But, I dont think I'll be doing business with them again. I purchased a pair of Purist IC's and asked them to inspect and test the RCA connectors. The transaction went well, but after a few weeks a connector broke, then a connector broke on the second cable. Purist's price for installing new RCA's is very high. Now I'm stuck with these expensive cables.

The other reason is due to an insulting offer on a preamp I had for sale. I sent pics and received an offer so low that i laughed. I emailed back showing the prices on the used market and they wouldn't up their offer. I eventually sold the preamp on Audiogon for 3X the amount. I went to TMR first assuming I could make a fast sale at a fair price.

The problem with buying some items from them is the unknown provenance; eg, amount of owners unknown, age of item unknown.

Ok, so dont believe me. I’ve been on this forum a lot longer than you. If you were familiar with my threads and comments you would see that I dont troll, exaggerate, or make negative comments.
This is an old thread and last year I made positive comments about TMR. Had good transactions with them.

First point; Purist makes very fine cables and at that time I had Aqueous Luminist cables. So I wanted to add another Purist and because the age of the cable and ownership was unknown, I wanted the connectors fully checked out. After only good experiences with TMR, provenance was not an issue in this case. These were possibly abused cables or the connectors were stressed by a previous owner and should have been more thoroughly inspected by the techs when traded in. What are the odds of connectors on both ICs breaking off.
I only just read about the 45 day warranty, I thought it was 30 days. So, my bad for not returning them.

Next item was an Atma-sphere UV-1 preamp with phono, highly modified by Ralph. My cost new was $2700 and I owned it for 2 years, still had a warranty (which was attractive to the eventual buyer). The offer from TMR was $300. I dont want to hear that they need to recoup operating costs and make a profit in this case.
Put it up for sale here and at US Audiomart, had offers and took about a month to sell. Also included lots of NOS tubes and sold the unit for $1350.
So there’s my story which may sound like fantasy or BS to you.

Mark, Yeah I should have contacted them about the cables. A piece of one connector snapped off after about 2 months and the other cable not long afterward.

I hear you regarding the Atma-sphere. Maybe TMR didn’t really want the preamp, but they should have given me a reason. They could have said it would be tough for them to sell it, or maybe there’s not much demand. I did reply to show them past online sale prices which ranged from $1200 to $1500 and the rep wouldn’t change his offer. What makes me angry at them is it seems like they will buy or take a trade on anything. It's become a buyer beware situation for me.

I did hear from my buyer telling me that he was thrilled with the preamp.
Since you asked, I upgraded to a used Audio Note linestage, the M2 Special which means it was a custom order with upgrades from the UK factory. I’m loving it.

Sorry for my harsh tone, but this has been a sore subject for me.

@djones51, ok, so same situation as me. I wish I was given an explanation by the rep for the low price.

@mitch2 ,
Very well explained. I found their pricing to be very fair. Have done some trades with them and purchases.