What's happened to the used high end market recently?? Sales are tough....:0(


The heading says it all!! What do you guys think is the reason that the sales in the used high end market have gone soft??
Prices too high? Economy too slow?? Stock market too volatile?? Something else??

Thoughts....
128x128daveyf
The hot items are contact paste, fuses and tin foil hats. The high end is that tally on fire!!!
shadorne, just curious, have you tried pasting your tin foil hat with Graphene yet? 
@ghasley 

Not sure where you are looking, but if it is on this site, there appears to be plenty of selection and 'inventory' available. 
While I totally agree with you that pricing is the number 1 determinant of how quickly something is going to sell, I also know that several of my fiends who have tried to sell their gear recently on this site and the few others that are utilized for used sales, have experienced a long drawn out process with little success. OTOH, was their price too high...probably. One guy did give his speaker cables away ( his comment, not mine) for 10% of the retail price that he paid less than a year before!
( Perhaps he paid way too much to begin with....that would be my thought; although he adamantly disputes that).
@daveyf 

Again, to beat the dead horse a little more, I have successfully bought and sold several items this year. Both types of transactions were pretty quick, less than 1 week typically soup to nuts.  I've sold some NOS tubes that went quickly for my asking price, several cables, accessories, etc all went for what I considered good prices to fellow Audiogoners both young and old. I sold some speakers that listed new for just north of $20,000 for just north of $10k. They were 3 years old and in excellent condition.  I've purchased some gear both here (gently preowned) and from dealers new/demo.

Respectfully, your friend selling cables for 10% of list indicates they are not very well thought of by the audio community at large...new or used. I have a pair of Transparent Gen 5 Reference speaker cables at home and Auditorium 23 speaker cables in my office and the latest Transparent cables would probably sell for 50-60% of list fairly easily and the A23's probably 80% of list. So, if something sold for 10% of list.....they were probably not that good were they?  In other words, scarcity and perceived quality drive any commodity's demand and value. You must use a better example than "your nameless friend sold some unnamed cables for 10% of list so therefore the hobby is going to shyte". That is an uncorrelated data point and unfair to the community. The sky isn't falling.
@ghasley

Last time I looked, this is a public forum. How smart would it really be to name names?
To say that the cables that my a’phile friend sold for a fraction of the list price weren’t very well thought of may be true...or may not be. Question is whether your “expected “ returns on your used cables could really be realized. Like others have pointed out on this thread, there are many sellers who are deluding themselves with their asking prices. Are you one of those or not...the market that we all find ourselves in at this point will dictate that, not your hyperthetical musings. Sounds like a very good thing that you are happy with your gear, for the moment.