On the second hand market: This pisses me off!

Kenneth HIFI

I assume most of the members on this site are not living in Sweden, or northern Europe? Well I do, and I just have to tell you about a really annoying thing on the hifi/high-end second hand market in Sweden. First of all, hifi products costs more to purchase here than for example in England or in the US. I’d guess about 25% more. Secondly, the market is so small, due to small population (approx 9 million people) and lack of awareness of high-end audio. A small market is a sensitive market in many ways. For example, when idiots dump prices in their ads, the whole market dives. Nowadays it’s impossible to even get 40-50% of the price paid when first bought. That will make high-end audio a soon to die-out hobby in Sweden. The economic suffering is just too great to justify changing equipment on a yearly (…or every 2…or 3 years) basis.
Private importing from foreign countries is a dead end too, since we live within the European Community. It’s tax free to buy from another member county, but buying from the “outside” is banned by high import toll taxes.
A friend of mine actually calculated that it would be profitable to sell my equipment to someone in the US, and pay for the shipping my selves, than selling it to my next door neighbour.
Anyone have anything to ad to this subject?

Best Regards,
Kenneth

TroyD

Yeah, but you are a boy in babeland soooo SHADDAP YOUSE.



BDT

PolknPepsi

Hi kenneth,

Guess the high prices makes you appreciate your equipment that much more.

Welcome to the Forum.......

ohskigod

TroyD wrote:

Yeah, but you are a boy in babeland soooo SHADDAP YOUSE.



BDT

hey Kenneth HIFI

I feel your pain, and it seems like a crappy situation. especially if your into HiFi buying and selling, as it seems you are. If you can make more money shipping to the states and what not, try it. you might lose, but what the hell. Sounds like deep routed issues in Sweden is causing the situation. guess you hav249
e to do what it takes to try to change it.

of course, no matter how bad things get, you have the privelage of looking at HOT Swedish honeys all day, so as Troy pointed out, its hard to feel sorry for ya

P.S. thanks to Swedish enginners who took part in designing my Volvo. the Hydrolic clutch blows, but the rest of the car friggin rocks!!!!

mldennison

yeah, that does sound like a bad situation. i know it is a big help to alot of people around here to know that they can resell their used equipment for a decent price.

shack

There is some very nice audio equipment available in Europe that can't be bought here. 2-channel seems to still be quite popular in Europe. I would think that GETTING good audio equipment would not be the problem. Affording it is another issue. High taxes, tariffs, etc...does tend to inflate the prices somewhat. It sounds like you have some "high end" gear. Do like I do just keep it....and buy more. Realistically, selling used audio equipment for 30-40% of retail after 2-3 years of use is not too bad. Especially if you really NEED (or want) new gear.

Hey...great cars, beautiful women, beautiful country (and region for that matter)...it COULD be worse...

BTW...welcome to the forum.

BlueMDPicker

Kenneth,

Welcome to the forum.

Would you happen to have a Stellavox reel-to-reel that needs liberating from the burden of democratic socialism?

dragon1952

BlueMDPicker wrote:

Kenneth,

Welcome to the forum.

Would you happen to have a Stellavox reel-to-reel that needs liberating from the burden of democratic socialism?

LOL! Always willing to help out, eh?

BlueMDPicker

Hands across the ocean.... Just trying to do my part to better international relations.

Shizelbs

Hey, count your blessings. At least you don't live in Norway.

Sami

The biggest problem is that the market is so small that your selection is very limited. Tell me what stuff you have for sale and I'll see if you can get better prices if you ship them to Finland.

How about them classic American cars? You could make a profit shipping them from Sweden to US. Back in the 80's the Swedes bought a bunch of them, shipped to Sweden and the market became oversaturated so the prices dropped. Now here in the US the prices are going up since you can't find them locally...ironic isn't it?

p.s. Swedish babes are overrated, at least to me since I grew up seeing them all the time. Maybe that's why I don't care much for blondes.

TroyD

BlueMDPicker wrote:

Kenneth,

Welcome to the forum.

Would you happen to have a Stellavox reel-to-reel that needs liberating from the burden of democratic socialism?

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Mike,

You are officially on a ROLL.

BDT

organ

Man, that sucks. There has to be a dealer who can work something out with you. Hell, look on the bright side... You guys have some high end chicks up there!

Maurice

Dennis Gardner

Welcome to the forum Kenneth!

I don't understand the issue? In my opinion, you described the perfect reason to buy on your used market, about 2-3 years behind the debut of the admittedly overpriced offerings. The new retail market is inflated at the least.

Unless a warranty is a mandatory concern, here is my take:

I would always rather buy a 2 year old well maintained $10k piece than a new $3k piece. (Quoting your 70% value loss)

My thought is if you can afford to buy new and trade every 2 years, you can afford to buy new and trade every 2 years. Those in this category don't worry about depeciation as they can afford to play the game.I know that I don't fall into the above category and it sounds as though you may not either. No offense meant in my statement, just acknowledging where many of us in this hobby reside. I have never bought audio equipment for the investment value, only the enjoyment value. It is afterall my hobby of choice. Many of us pride ourselves on having gear that sounds as good as the guy that paid new retail, but didn't require the second mortgage to make it happen for us.

Oh and by the way, I may have some perfectly good gear to trade for a couple swimsuit models if you have any to spare.

Kenneth HIFI

Hi!
This will represent my quote to all of your inputs to this thread:
My point was that I don't see the reason for high-end audio equipment losing 70% of its value (compared to retail price) in two-three years. It’s not like a used car, which gets worn down relatively quick, resulting in high maintenance costs. I agree that the retail market is some what inflated and I’d also suppose that the supply on the second hand market might be greater than the request.
Regarding me buying second hand… For some reason I never seem to find the gear I am looking for, second hand. I also have my own audio/video company, with one colleague, and have therefore got discount prices on several brands. This means I don’t have to suffer the full blow of decrease in value, but it’s just as annoying anyway. To put it into words: I simply don’t understand why the second hand value is so poor…

The system I am currently selling consists from:
Musical Fidelity CD-player
Musical Fidelity CR pre-amp
Musical Fidelity 200 watts mono-blocs (1 pair)
A full set of Supras finest cables

I posted a quote on an old thread, regarding changing mains leads in the audio system. I’d be more than happy if anybody gave me some input there.

Regarding all the babes wearing swimsuits… Sweden is close to (and actually crossing) the polar circle. This means we have a winter season that lasts for 6 months, with less than 8 hours of daylight per day. That’s living in Stockholm (capital city), like I happen to do, but up north it’s even worse, with around the clock absence of daylight. Summertime, when it’s actually possible to dress in bathing-trunks, lasts for around three full months. Then the darkness is creeping up on you again.

To Sami (guess you might be finish): We have a summer house (two actually) in Finland, south west of Turku (Nauvo). I just say: -log cabin, hunting, private beach and real finish sauna…-yeah dude!
They’ve been there on the Discovery channel!

Cheers!

Dennis Gardner wrote:

Welcome to the forum Kenneth!

I don't understand the issue? In my opinion, you described the perfect reason to buy on your used market, about 2-3 years behind the debut of the admittedly overpriced offerings. The new retail market is inflated at the least.

Unless a warranty is a mandatory concern, here is my take:

I would always rather buy a 2 year old well maintained $10k piece than a new $3k piece. (Quoting your 70% value loss)

My thought is if you can afford to buy new and trade every 2 years, you can afford to buy new and trade every 2 years. Those in this category don't worry about depeciation as they can afford to play the game.I know that I don't fall into the above category and it sounds as though you may not either. No offense meant in my statement, just acknowledging where many of us in this hobby reside. I have never bought audio equipment for the investment value, only the enjoyment value. It is afterall my hobby of choice. Many of us pride ourselves on having gear that sounds as good as the guy that paid new retail, but didn't require the second mortgage to make it happen for us.

Oh and by the way, I may have some perfectly good gear to trade for a couple swimsuit models if you have any to spare.

danger boy

for this we love Sweden so much!

BlueMDPicker

Hey! What am I, chopped liver?!

In best Brando voice - STELLA! STELLA!!

Good luck on your sale, Kenneth.

reeltrouble1

Sheesh,

So have the women put on their little suits INSIDE!!!! Besides, Snow Bunnies can be just as fun.

Woo Hoo!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dang talk about seeing the glass half empty. Well Good Luck.

RT1

Sami

reeltrouble1 wrote:

So have the women put on their little suits INSIDE!!!! Besides, Snow Bunnies can be just as fun.

Well, we Finns have an answer to that: http://cankar.org/sauna/howto/avanto.html

Kenneth, I'll see what I can do if you PM the prices you're looking to get from them. About the cabins, my parents just sold their house and are looking for a beach property either in Oulu or Southern Finland to build a cabin. At 50 they are ready to retire and move out of Finland during the winter months. Sauna is a much and a private beach but unfortunately hunting on most places would be on shared land.

reeltrouble1

Holy Crap!!!

RT1

Dennis Gardner

High end audio depreciation is high due to its hobby status.

The blessing or curse of this phenomena depends on which end of the spectrum you choose to reside. I am blessed ,as my audio sounds just as good as yours did 18 months ago for 1/3 the investment.

Cheers and I hope you have the setup you want for the long winter haul.

Graymane

Kenneth, You need to make friends with someone in NATO who has PX priveldges there and have them buy your gear for you, air force bases used to have great AV centers run by the PX.