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Accumulated Hi-Fi Stuff

I don't like having unused kit sitting around for too long so don't really accumulate much. I only have one spare pair of cheapish speakers, an amp, and a junky backup cdp. I may have to sell the speakers come to think of it as although I really like them it's a waste for them to sit on a shelf (the amp gets swapped in to my office setup periodically).

Plus I have a tiny cottage so I have little room to accumulate anything in great quantity really :rolleyes:

Actually, the only things that I decided not to sell in future are any spare valves, as every time I have a 'valve amp episode' I discover that all the nice old valves are twice as expensive as they were previously. I really wish that I'd kept hold of a selection of previous spares instead of selling them when I sold various amps.
 
I had two mint pairs of Mission 710s, from their earliest production range, one pair of mine, one of my Dad's, a lovely sweet-sounding speaker, kept them in the boxes in the attic until I needed them, only to find decayed surrounds on the bass units when I opened them up.

Attics are bad places to store most things as the temperature variations in an attic are enormous .Generally the floor of the attic is insulated and not the roof itself so it freezes in winter and cooks in summer .
 
Apart from my huge generosity, attic climate is a reason I lend my stuff. Not had any problems, only to pfm-ers with a history though.
 
I just have a steady drip feed of all sorts of stuff for sale. Some goes, some doesn't. I just post up ads here periodically and add to them as I see fit. I'm hoping someone will come round and buy a spare bike later. My Dad's great big lawnmower would be better still, but I think I'll have to drop the price on that.

Hifi accessories are always easy. Cables etc are easy. Stands are almost impossible because everyone wants them posted and it's never worthwhile. Hardest to sell are things like CD players, I had a few that a mate gave me from his hoarded collection; I was knocking them out at a tenner a go and they still wouldn't move. "Oh, can you post it to Uzbekistan?" (No) "Oh, have you got boxes and remotes and are they unmarked and recently serviced?" (Really? For a tenner?)
But pile it up and sell it cheap and it moves. Eventually.
 
Hardest to sell are things like CD players, I had a few that a mate gave me from his hoarded collection; I was knocking them out at a tenner a go and they still wouldn't move. "Oh, can you post it to Uzbekistan?" (No) "Oh, have you got boxes and remotes and are they unmarked and recently serviced?" (Really? For a tenner?)

Years ago I bought a couple of £10 CD players off the wam to use for our wedding reception in a pub. For weeks afterwards I couldn't give them away. Eventually in desperation I took them to the tip where, just as I was about to lob them into the skip, a guy dashed up and had them off me. He was pleased as punch!

There's a lesson there somewhere. I'm just not sure what it is!
 
Years ago I bought a couple of £10 CD players off the wam to use for our wedding reception in a pub. For weeks afterwards I couldn't give them away. Eventually in desperation I took them to the tip where, just as I was about to lob them into the skip, a guy dashed up and had them off me. He was pleased as punch!

There's a lesson there somewhere. I'm just not sure what it is!
For ultracheap stuff like this you are often better off in the local paper than on a forum for the reasons you say. There's usually *someone* in the local area who, as you say, wants them for a party, or to stick in an office/workshop/playroom and they don't much care what they are. "Does it work?" "Yes, want me to demo it?" "No thanks, that's fine, I trust you. Here's a tenner, thanks."
 
For the knowing, all those boxes with buttons and dials are worth a fortune. For our better half’s it is worth next to nothing.
Should add a tentative price tag under our kit, just in case…. Those spread sheets you talk about are never going to be found…
Sorry if a bit morose.
 
Years ago I bought a couple of £10 CD players off the wam to use for our wedding reception in a pub. For weeks afterwards I couldn't give them away. Eventually in desperation I took them to the tip where, just as I was about to lob them into the skip, a guy dashed up and had them off me. He was pleased as punch!

There's a lesson there somewhere. I'm just not sure what it is!

Freecycle is your friend
 
Freecycle is your friend
I was about to say the same thing. It can be a pain in the arse as people will still mess you around even if it's free but I can't bring myself to bin useful or working equipment, someone will take it away and get some use out of it.
 
Vinyl is the thing I ponder about. I look at the (relatively small compared to many) collection and wonder if 90% of it will ever get listened to again, and thus why have it, and why keep expanding it. I do like to support the artists though so keep buying it. I'm almost viewing buying records now as charitable donations for which I get sent a piece of plastic :)
 
Vinyl is the thing I ponder about. I look at the (relatively small compared to many) collection and wonder if 90% of it will ever get listened to again, and thus why have it, and why keep expanding it. I do like to support the artists though so keep buying it. I'm almost viewing buying records now as charitable donations for which I get sent a piece of plastic :)

Way I see it, even with a big collection records have more chance of being played than 90% of the books people find shelf space for... how many times are you really going to re-read Ulysses? : )

I sometimes listen to a rare books podcast and it seems pretty common for dealers to buy a private library where great swathes of the books have barely been opened. At least every record that comes in the house get played a bunch of times before it disappears onto the shelves.

Though of course space is finite so I have to keep pruning. The wardrobe collapsed a few years back because I'd filled it with records... :-/
 
Raising a couple of grand by disposing of hi fi ephemera is a punishing way of raising a couple of grand.

Bike parts seem to sell far more easily.
 
I like to kid myself that my carefully curated collections of vintage hifi, jazz records and mid century furniture will hold their value or appreciate but in reality, once my generation has got too old to care, I don't think much of it would appeal to the younger generations.
 
Need to sell some stuff. Old Audiolab 8000A, a Marantz KI sig, couple of Shure V15 stylus that might be useful for someone.. original HE and a Jico SAS one. No point keeping stuff
 
I used to accumulate hi-fi...
At one point it was six turntables, several phono stages, two pre amps, two power amps, a couple of ways to play CDs... even had two sets of speakers for nearly a year...

Over the last few years I've made a progressive effort to sell stuff off (or give it to someone who will actually use it- one friend got a complete CD playing system minus speakers, including MFA Classic, Avondale power)

The excess is down to 2 sets of Kondo VC interconnects, a set of bi-wire Kondo SPC speaker cables and a first generation power supply for the SME 20...

and I nearly forgot...

a 12 inch Ittok on a Sony TTS3000
 
Attics are bad places to store most things as the temperature variations in an attic are enormous .Generally the floor of the attic is insulated and not the roof itself so it freezes in winter and cooks in summer .
Crap, I'm just reminded I have another cassette deck and CD-player in the attic.
 


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