Vintage audio getting more expensive.

loweran

Super Member
Seems like since I started this hobby just a few years ago, that the prices of vintage gear are rising considerably. I occasionally find a reasonable price for a piece of gear, but most of the eBay and local listings are incredibly high. Even non-working gear seems to be priced at a premium.

Do you think that the market for this stuff is expanding, therefore the demand is driving up prices?
 
Ohhhhh. Yes....!!!!
In just under a two year span I saw the Pioneer a SX-1980, which was the bain of all amps, due to suffering many problems and issues, go from the low to mid hundreds to the very high thousands of dollars/pounds.
Back then, this amp was of no interest to anybody due to the fantastic advancement of new amps.
Then, suddenly, vinyl comes back in to fashion en mass and we see people wanting to match their old turntables (or even new) to Receivers and Amps of old to re-create the retro feel and sound.
This set off a chain of events within the old school/retro world of audio and we now see Receivers & Amps going for high prices. Even ones that may not work are being snapped up for refurbishment & resale after the fact. No doubt at a highly inflated price.
Thing is, everyone can attempt, & is entitled to, sell for whatever they want to ask for. If it is sought after, someone will buy it. That’s almost guaranteed.
Large scale/size Receivers are now beginning to become thin on the ground. There are quite a few mid range Receivers flying around on various well known websites but these are now slowly dwindling in numbers. Prices too are creeping up especially if they’ve been recapped &/or refurbished.
Sometimes somebody will get lucky in a yard sale or local auction house. I’ve read many such good fortunes and finds made this way, mostly in the USA, but how I wish that would happen here in the UK! All I ever seem to come across is rubbish.
Plod on I will .........
 
other way around. one pioneer sets a new high, everyone runs and buys up all the
available Pioneers, and all these are pumped and dumped on ebay and CL.

I can almost hear the flippers saying, this was $100 last year, it's now $500, and
inside 2 years it could be $2K.

you could do a great business this way. I know this guy in San Jose, years ago, spent
every available penny on tube equipment. over time he fixes them and now it funds his
retirement - he's strictly eBay. his repair costs are nil and his balance sheet is
simple - he sells for 3 times his original cost.
 
Twelve years ago I wanted a setup I couldn't have when in my teens. Looking for a vintage receiver back then floored me. And now. Wow.
I decided to find a broken one and fix it. Best thing I ever did. The second best thing was becoming a member in this fantastic forum.

The gear is everywhere you just have to look. Lots of affordable stuff is coming into view because of the high prices garnered for the cult equipment.
Also I have had something to do with the crazy pricing and it does make me step back a look at things differently. But like "Idunno" says "It's all about what a guy wants to pay".
One thing I found out about selling at the top of the market; The buyer's are extremely acute to the sets they want. Very demanding of the condition and service. Selling at that end is hard work. You're not just selling the equipment.
 
I certainly can understand a properly restored unit getting a premium price. You can't buy. You can't buy them new anymore and they won't sound right, even if they work, until you restore it. Comparable new gear will cost well over what a restored unit can be had for and you still don't get the aesthetics.

I wonder if people think these things don't change with age, buy 'working' units and use them till they are 'not working', then try and sell them for top dollar in a broken state. And how many times have you bought a 'working' unit that does not work. I also imagine that very few are buying and fixing them up like us. So, I wonder if this will be a bubble and prices will moderate. There seems to be plenty of supply left as you see units up for sale every day and can generally choose between many units.
 
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about 3 yrs ago i bought a sx890 for 29$ on ebay and an 850 for 49$. they both were wrecks but now sing sweetly and arent beat up. my 1080 cost me 250$ 7 yrs ago i KNEW i paid to much but i WANTED IT. in the last year prices have soared to etheral levels. sets like 424's and 650's are now over 100$. recently someone tried to sell an sx9000 for 700$ UNRESTORED. and 780's that everyone here who reads this forum KNOWS for a fact that when the outputs go you got yourself a big problem are over 200$ i cant work it out save for the fact that the buyers must think all they gotta do is plug it in and let her rip! there must be a lot of unhappy campers from ebay.
 
What I have learned is that the mechanically inclined can restore a unit with the help of all the gracious people here. But it takes a certain type of person and some persistence to do so. I gotta think that is fairly rare. It takes a combination of mechanical skill, troubleshooting skill, logical thinking and mostly desire to restore these things. I know in todays world there are a lot of people who have the training and experience to do so, but it still seems to me to be a rare thing that people are doing this. So, in a plug and play generation, I would expect that this market would moderate. It's a very interesting market.

BTW I have found acceptable prices for many pieces. But, it's far and few between. Seems the electronics enjoy a premium but the passive components (speaker) do not.
 
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I'd argue the last recession probably undervalued a lot of this stuff. Since they're non-necessities, and many owners might've been short on cash and sold low. The recent climb is probably the market correction.
 
Interest in old stuff in general could be some backlash to much of today's stuff being made obsolete so quickly and worthless. I've got a small pile of digital cameras that I just know will never again be of any value for instance. Old audio gear can often be kept out of the landfills for a very long time. To be fair the new audio gear of a certain quality could too, but not the box store stuff. It is like day old bread,landfill destined in a very short time.
 
I'd argue the last recession probably undervalued a lot of this stuff. Since they're non-necessities, and many owners might've been short on cash and sold low. The recent climb is probably the market correction.

Yes, but do people know what they are getting into? That is the interesting part of the equation. People who buy old cars know what it takes to keep them running. Do people who buy old electronics know? Maybe I am naive.
 
Yes, but do people know what they are getting into? That is the interesting part of the equation. People who buy old cars know what it takes to keep them running. Do people who buy old electronics know? Maybe I am naive.
I know what it takes, and I have put in a little work that my modest electronics skills could handle, crossovers, drivers etc. Then I paid a good tech to get the rest of the stuff done to my amplifier that I felt uncomfortable working on myself.

Really wasn't that expensive and now I have a nice sounding system that is old but sounding as good as it did when new. I know this because I have owned it for 40 plus years. It now stands set to outlive me I believe . I don't know why that makes me sad in a way.. will it all finally end up on some curb after the estate sale after over a half century of playing music? Personally I am happy about vintage coming back. I hope it keeps its value as I would hate to see my stuff hit the bottom of a dumpster, unwanted by anyone after all those years.
 
There’s gear here which will likely outlast me as well (provided I keep it.) I have to admit that what’s next for it can be vexing for me. So it’s handling goes in the will.
 
The good stuff was always big money unless you lucked upon a thrift find or an estate sale. The vinyl comeback had made every CL mouthbreather think BPC from the 80's is worth Yamaha GT-2000 money. The resurgence of 50's MiMo is making some consoles go up because they look great and IMO they are worth it just for the furniture even if they can use an equipment upgrade, but it also creeps over to horrible 60's consoles that look like the interior of a Chrylser Cordoba. The same knuckle-dragger that wants $2000 for a 1985 Fisher rack system is the one selling the 1967 Panasonic console for $500.
 
I know what it takes, and I have put in a little work that my modest electronics skills could handle, crossovers, drivers etc. Then I paid a good tech to get the rest of the stuff done to my amplifier that I felt uncomfortable working on myself.

Really wasn't that expensive and now I have a nice sounding system that is old but sounding as good as it did when new. I know this because I have owned it for 40 plus years. It now stands set to outlive me I believe . I don't know why that makes me sad in a way.. will it all finally end up on some curb after the estate sale after over a half century of playing music? Personally I am happy about vintage coming back. I hope it keeps its value as I would hate to see my stuff hit the bottom of a dumpster, unwanted by anyone after all those years.

That last sentence almost gave me a brain hemorrhage (haha) when I thought about any of my gear heading to a dumpster!
But I feel that there is a greater whole at play now, and that’s the idea that this gear looks really good, and is worth preserving for more than just one reason. Newer buyers love it as much for the thick metal, turned knobs, analog meters, wooden accents, ETC as they do for the sound. This little turn is a big deal, the gear is looked at as art itself as well as being able to reproduce art. Usable industrial sculpture in a way. So the new buyers’ children will probably glean this from their parents as the generations go by. Even if not to use, then to act as curator for.
 
IMO, the stuff is way overvalued on fleaby and now creeping into CL. the OP has it right. One spot that is still pretty good value wise is the early home theater equipment. The early stuff sounds much better, generally, in a stereo application than the avr's today. They didn't feel the need to fill up with low quality "100 watt per channel!' amps. Usually the surround channel amps were lower powered and the mains were better quality than you see today, commonly.They go cheaply compared to stereo receivers of the same era.
 
That last sentence almost gave me a brain hemorrhage (haha) when I thought about any of my gear heading to a dumpster!
But I feel that there is a greater whole at play now, and that’s the idea that this gear looks really good, and is worth preserving for more than just one reason. Newer buyers love it as much for the thick metal, turned knobs, analog meters, wooden accents, ETC as they do for the sound. This little turn is a big deal, the gear is looked at as art itself as well as being able to reproduce art. Usable industrial sculpture in a way. So the new buyers’ children will probably glean this from their parents as the generations go by. Even if not to use, then to act as curator for.

There is something to this. Marantz tuners - the tactile feel of spinning that "knob" combined with the visual of the tuner needle sliding along can't be beat.
 
There is something to this. Marantz tuners - the tactile feel of spinning that "knob" combined with the visual of the tuner needle sliding along can't be beat.
I totally agree. I love the look and feel of Marantz probably more than any other. It was the first real audio equipment I was ever exposed to in the early 70's and my first amp was the 1120 integrated inspired by my older brothers Marantz receiver. I don't know how anyone from any generation couldn't love that! Makes some digital readout thing seem dull and even burdensome.
 
Actually everything is getting more expensive, but really it's the value of the dollar loosing it's purchasing power. I started to notices it getting bad around 2011-12 and they where going through the roof about hamburger going over $3.50 a pound for the first time ever. Today a pound of hamburger is over $5.00.

They did a ton of quantitative easing (QE) after the housing crises and we are paying the price for it. Inflation, looking at the value of the dollar compared to commodities valued in dollars show 15% year over year increase, so don't believe the 2% bs we get fed. All the while salaries are stagnant for the most part.
 
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