Vintage gear prices today

[Alobar]

I'm a member of many "vintage audio" groups on the interwebz and I see more and more horde-like "collections", rooms filled with stereo gear, stacked to the ceilings,unused. ("Collectors", Sheesh!) When these guys start to die off, all that gear will flood the market, a market which, by that time, will be shrinking as the generation that revered this gear dies.

Remember what happened to the tube radio market?

There might be some of that type of hoarding but really how many actually have vintage gear stacked to the rafters really? Compare those with people like me who have a few choice pieces of vintage and i suspect the hoarders are really a small minority, or else they are flipping inventory which is a different thing altogether . Who has all this gear stacked everywhere in their house? Just the fringe IMO.

 

[loopstick]

I don't think the bottom will fall out of the market. But the prices will probably start to slide as interest in the gear declines. I had a bunch of silver face stuff that was just taking up shelf space so I put it back into circulation at the Salvation Army. My hoard becomes somebody else's score.

 

[quiet]

There might be some of that type of hoarding but really how many actually have vintage gear stacked to the rafters really? Compare those with people like me who have a few choice pieces of and vintage and i suspect the hoarders are really a small minority, or else they are flipping inventory which is a different thing altogether . Who has all this gear stacked everywhere in their house? Just the fringe IMO.

In the last two weeks I've seen two homes over run with nice vintage gear. The residents were not happy. A good effort was being made to sell off most of it. Good enough that I got two pair of speakers. At the rate they're going I give them about a year before they have their homes back in a usable condition. Packet to the roof, every room. I've not seen this in person before.
Most times I run across a dozen receivers and half a dozen pair of speakers give or take. And the stuff is coming and going with the music a playing.
So no I don't see every neighborhood with a packed to the ceiling house. Just the fringe.

 

[Yuaaaaaaaaan]

The technology matured early, and the gear was mass produced (economics of scale).
I don't think anyone can produce the same quality gear even at the same cost (inflation adjusted) now.
An example would be that we still don't have semi-automatic/linear tracking turntables manufactured now, even though there is a vinyl revival.

 

[slow_jazz]

I check Craiglist and Facebook Marketplace and the good stuff is still going for big bucks.


Summer has traditionally been a softer market.

 

[Alobar]

The technology matured early, and the gear was mass produced (economics of scale).
I don't think anyone can produce the same quality gear even at the same cost (inflation adjusted) now.
An example would be that we still don't have semi-automatic/linear tracking turntables manufactured now, even though there is a vinyl revival.

Vinyl revival represents a very tiny percentage of what that medium was like before the CD was accepted in mass. If there was a real demand for those, enough to make it worth gearing up to build such a sophisticated machine as a DD linear tracker, they would be doing it, and once in production, there would be a fraction of the labor force that Technics had when they built my SLQL1 back in the early 80's. Still lots of vintage LT's around to further kill the need to build more new ones..

 

[superdog]

I didn't see much difference in the demographics of people who bought 90% of the vintage gear I sold off in the past seven to ten years.They were almost all boomers.

 

[Drugolf]

Well it seems the thing that vintage audio gear has going for it is that it is still applicable to use. Even though media is moved around in today's world digitally, it still needs to be converted to analog to be able to enjoy it (other than headphones from your phone). Most other electronics have been displaced by digital and will never come back like video. And the thing is I don't think big electronics companies want to mess with analog and will avoid or minimize it if at all possible.

Some keys though will be:
1. Is the old vintage gear just too old and falling apart or have the parts that age been replaced? Biggest legit concern and who is gonna fix things for a reasonable cost?
2. Size
3. Portability - people are much more transient in their lifestyles moving around often and don't want to lug around things like speakers.
4. Powered speakers - many will probably go that route since it is less gear.
5. Awareness - the younger generation does not have a clue how this stuff works or can be integrated into their digital library. Nor do most know just how good the experience can be.
6. We are headed to 2 viable formats. Digital download/streaming and Vinyl. Both can be integrated with vintage easily. The former really only with vintage.

As for the OP's original question about prices, some are just crazy, especially on Ebay. Most seem to be just thrown out there on the hopes of hooking a big fish. Summer is slow for sure.

 

[Bigboi33]

Personally I'm not surprised at the prices.
Right now, we have the baby boomer generation to rely on when it comes to repair and maintenance of all the old gear.
We also still have the generation of the 80's who lusted after their father/grand-fathers gear.
Not to mention, gear they couldn't afford but now can.
We also have the few in the younger hipster crowd looking to feel nostalgic.
As long as the above ingredients are alive and well, supply and demand can still work together.

But what happens when the baby boomers start to fade into the stars? Or when OE parts begin to dry up?
Who will we turn to in the next 20 years when all the refurbished vintage gear needs a tune up?
Thoughts for a new thread?

 

[Hak Foo]

It doesn't feel like there'd be a huge engineering challenge building a direct-drive, linear-tracking turntable today.

If we can make a motor and control system that precisely spins a stack of hard-drive platters at 7200 rpm, we can make a cheap motor that spins at precisely 33 1/3.

The tone-arm mechanism seems like fairly simple feedback. The arm has to float a little to accomodate warped records, so position a leaf switch on each side to identify if the arm is too far off of square. Hell, it might be feasible to put a length of railing like a model train set, and put the tonearm on a powered car.

The fun parts would be setting up a fairly simple microcontroller to orchestrate automatic play and track scanning.

 

[SiliconTi]

Are they high?

OK, eBay is.

I have tried selling on BT and CL and nothing is moving - and the prices are way below "market value".

 

[Roadrash]

The prices of Kenwood L-seies gear in particular seem to be coming back to realistic levels on Ebay again. L-07Ts, Tlls, Cs, and Clls were bringing stupid amounts of cash for awhile. Before I had the spare cash to actually do anything, I saw some excellent deals here on BT and Ebay and the gear just sat forever, then all of a sudden L-07Ts were selling for over a grand on Ebay. I have to wonder sometimes how much the discussions of how good or rare some gear is here on AK drives prices on Ebay.

 

[Bob]

when your iPhone (X) and Mac Tablet (retina) costs about 2K, any audio unit under 200 is
chump change.

then the flippers come in, thinking they're going to flip hundreds of units with just a wipedown.

so yes, this audio phenomena is going to continue, until the repercussions of the next market crash
forces sales. Just like in California after the last crash. bought tons of stuff at giveaway prices.

start going into cash. accumulate enough to last the crash and continue to pay the bills.
Have cash now? prepay, invest, and pray.

 

[Bodyblue]

I bought a pair of beautiful KLH 17s today that have been re capped and re doped for $100. The guy had them on CL and Facebook for two months. He started at $150 and finally came down to $100 just to get some cash moving. When I picked them up we talked about how the market was really slipping in our area the last 6 months.

 

[Roadrash]

I bought a pair of beautiful KLH 17s today that have been re capped and re doped for $100. The guy had them on CL and Facebook for two months. He started at $150 and finally came down to $100 just to get some cash moving. When I picked them up we talked about how the market was really slipping in our area the last 6 months.

I've seen more sellers on the local CL trying to get ebay prices than I have good deals lately, although the gear seems to sit on there forever. The last real good deal I saw was a pair of JBL 4313Bs that needed foam for 300 bucks, unfortunately I had just spent 600 to replace a 3 year old TV that took a dump. The JBLs sold pretty quickly too.

 

[Bodyblue]

I've seen more sellers on the local CL trying to get ebay prices than I have good deals lately, although the gear seems to sit on there forever. The last real good deal I saw was a pair of JBL 4313Bs that needed foam for 300 bucks, unfortunately I had just spent 600 to replace a 3 year old TV that took a dump. The JBLs sold pretty quickly too.

When I was messaging with him we talked about the market locally being soft. After some polite back and forth we came the the $100 price. I think that was about what he had in them.

 

[quiet]

When I was messaging with him we talked about the market locally being soft. After some polite back and forth we came the the $100 price. I think that was about what he had in them.

A nice pair has been sitting on the D.C. list at $80 for about a month. Nice fellow, I passed but gave him $180 for some premium Rec 111's. And another local guy $175 for some very nice Bozak 302a's from ebay. And another person local $50 for very clean Optimus 5B's

Otherwise lot's of junk or big prices.

 

[Bodyblue]

A nice pair has been sitting on the D.C. list at $80 for about a month. Nice fellow, I passed but gave him $180 for some premium Rec 111's. And another local guy $175 for some very nice Bozak 302a's from ebay. And another person local $50 for very clean Optimus 5B's

Otherwise lot's of junk or big prices.

I think one problem is that few normal buyers have heard of brands like KLH or Rectilinear etc. Most everybody has heard of Pioneer or Marantz. Audio guys know of them but some stuff is still rare. This is the first set of KLH 17s I have heard. The owners of the local shop I sell to only buys the big names lately because of that.

 

[quiet]

I think one problem is that few normal buyers have heard of brands like KLH or Rectilinear etc. Most everybody has heard of Pioneer or Marantz. Audio guys know of them but some stuff is still rare. This is the first set of KLH 17s I have heard. The owners of the local shop I sell to only buys the big names lately because of that.

Yep, there's lots of CV, Technics, Bose, Polk, KEF, DCM, Infinity, ADS, Sony, Sansui, Marantz, and what not here on this trip. But $350 for D3's? Really?

 

[howardtheduc]

We are beginning to see some price/ demand slipping here in Salt Lake. We have a healthy Audio enthusiast community but no dedicated serious shops to buy rehabbed vintage from or repair vintage gear that are solidly accepted by the Audio Community. Also, Pickers virtually dominate our Audio
market . The Classifieds are full of $200 to $400 gear that.." works perfectly and sounds incredible!" that don't actually work at all and sound like crap. Affordable new stuff I've heard hits my ' why bother" button. As for recaps, I'm hearing stories of tepid sound to start and and functions failing a year or so after the recap. The result of this seems to be a beginning of .. "The Turning Away.."