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Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2023 10:32:43 GMT -6
Saying all that I just got some real bargains by lowballing high prices with the sellers on eBay or reverb and taking chances. If you don’t care whether you win or not you have nothing to lose and as was mentioned before there is so much good boutique gear at reasonable prices that there’s nothing to stop great classic recordings. The fetishisation of old classic gear is silly and by selling mine I bought a church and built a studio which is much better for recording than some old Neves and Urei’s in a crappy space. Let the rich hipsters pay 70k for a console worth 10 or 12k for a broken Fet compressor. I’m aiming for quality and I’m not concerned with fashion. My Bock 251’s were 2k each. And likewise I sell at reasonable prices to move gear on. I don’t sit on stuff to rinse the most I can. That is for greedy gits. there is also a fetishization of 40-70 years ago instead of 20-30 odd years ago when analog gear started getting cleaner and more functional. Nothing fetishized by Neve or Urei or SSL can really touch an Aphex piece or solve as many problems as an Aphex or even a lower fidelity BSS DPR 402. I just experienced this yesterday with a snare recordings where nothing could compress the ones made in the first day of recording enough for the mix without taking the snares off except for Presswerk with its high frequency expander. The only analog compressors with that were the Aphex Expressor and Drawmer DL251 which are not fetishized. We’re in a very weird market where most new products border on toys or attempt to recreate products that most current home recordings aren’t recorded well and clean enough to utilize to get it DONE despite largely being sample and vsti based like the pop music they imitate and many commercial studios are starting to be filled with the toys to cater to them because the bands dried up with the live venues. There are still a ton of metal bands but the toy places tend to not have a mostly working console and that means not nearly enough workhorse analog processors (gates, expanders, vca compressors, parametric eqs, typical workhorse channel strips, filters, shelves) that your typical not particularly talented local metal band needs to get their mediocre music to the level of a middling metal record during tracking or the rough. So the entire production is usually assembled during the mix now for metal. If the studio resorted to most Tdm or aax dsp plugs because they didn’t have enough workhorse processors, and the band liked their monitoring mixes, so they printed them, that’s a huge handicap to the final sound because there has never been an extreme metal band I’ve worked with who was satisfied with the rough. if they multimiced a drum or cab or took dis, half of everything is often getting muted because it’s often unusable like they wasted time getting a snare bottom set up instead of getting the snare top right or screwing down the snare or bothered to set up di boxes and screwed it up anyway instead of just moving the sm57 around better on the cone to not be needed to be gutted like a fish in post. Somehow the studio recordings have gotten worse than a lot of Tascam ones I’ve worked on. |
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on Jun 5, 2023 11:09:08 GMT -6
Lots of contributing factors here. One thing is that over the last ten years, we have all contributed to the fetishizing of vintage analogue gear. Only a vintage 67 or 87 sounds right, nothing sounds quite the same as a Urei, only vintage consoles sound truly great, and on and on. It's no wonder prices have gone up, they're not making them any more. I'd love to have a Neumann U67 and a rack of vintage pres and compressors, but given a Soyuz 0-17 or a Chandler Redd, with one of the fantastic preamp and compressor reproductions made by many of the newer companies we're all familiar with, and you'll sound great if you are great. My next record features a song with lead vocals tracked by me at home through a Roswell k67 into a CL7602. I kinda knew that vocal was the keeper, but when I did some work soon after at a nearby studio, it seemed obvious I should try the vocal again through the vintage Neumann 67 on hand, as that was one of the reasons I wanted to work there. The newer vocals sounded good, but sonically not "better" than the Roswell and the performance had a touch of "But... you already nailed this!" to it. I've sung through a number of 67s in amazing studios and I know this mic flatters my nasal voice, but yeah, the Roswell held its own. Much of my gear at home isn't impressive on paper, and I work elsewhere when I need, but there is more and more "good," "really good " and "actually great" gear available by the day that's affordable by mere mortal standards! This is one of the dirty little secrets that guys like Ward and I talk about all the time. Sometimes a cheap mic even an MXL , AT2020, even a C1000 just works. It might be simple luck, the voicing just fits or the performance but sometimes it just works better than anything else, now we are sworn to secrecy when this happens and nod our heads when the artist, AE, or producer credits it as a U47 through a Neve, even if we know it was a PG48 into a M audio interface in the lead singer’s bedroom. Why do we keep the secret? Well there is the fact we like working, but we know it was one track and it worked and unless Shure is going to compensate us for selling a bunch of PG48’s we know everything else was a U48! |
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Post by antbar on Jun 5, 2023 11:23:18 GMT -6
My next record features a song with lead vocals tracked by me at home through a Roswell k67 into a CL7602. I kinda knew that vocal was the keeper, but when I did some work soon after at a nearby studio, it seemed obvious I should try the vocal again through the vintage Neumann 67 on hand, as that was one of the reasons I wanted to work there. The newer vocals sounded good, but sonically not "better" than the Roswell and the performance had a touch of "But... you already nailed this!" to it. I've sung through a number of 67s in amazing studios and I know this mic flatters my nasal voice, but yeah, the Roswell held its own. Much of my gear at home isn't impressive on paper, and I work elsewhere when I need, but there is more and more "good," "really good " and "actually great" gear available by the day that's affordable by mere mortal standards! This is one of the dirty little secrets that guys like Ward and I talk about all the time. Sometimes a cheap mic even an MXL , AT2020, even a C1000 just works. It might be simple luck, the voicing just fits or the performance but sometimes it just works better than anything else, now we are sworn to secrecy when this happens and nod our heads when the artist, AE, or producer credits it as a U47 through a Neve, even if we know it was a PG48 into a M audio interface in the lead singer’s bedroom. Why do we keep the secret? Well there is the fact we like working, but we know it was one track and it worked and unless Shure is going to compensate us for selling a bunch of PG48’s we know everything else was a U48! I was vocalist in a French band a few years back and we worked together for the first time in an iconic studio. The engineer pulled up a U47 - first time I'd ever seen one in my life. We were getting things dialed in when I asked if it'd be cool to try a 67 as well. The engineer was more than happy to accommodate. He explained that his go-to was also the U67, but that first-time clients in this studio always expect to see a 47 set up, as it's such a part of the image of that room. |
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Post by Ward on Jun 5, 2023 11:27:45 GMT -6
This is one of the dirty little secrets that guys like Ward and I talk about all the time. Sometimes a cheap mic even an MXL , AT2020, even a C1000 just works. It might be simple luck, the voicing just fits or the performance but sometimes it just works better than anything else, now we are sworn to secrecy when this happens and nod our heads when the artist, AE, or producer credits it as a U47 through a Neve, even if we know it was a PG48 into a M audio interface in the lead singer’s bedroom. Why do we keep the secret? Well there is the fact we like working, but we know it was one track and it worked and unless Shure is going to compensate us for selling a bunch of PG48’s we know everything else was a U48! I was vocalist in a French band a few years back and we worked together for the first time in an iconic studio. The engineer pulled up a U47 - first time I'd ever seen one in my life. We were getting things dialed in when I asked if it'd be cool to try a 67 as well. The engineer was more than happy to accommodate. He explained that his go-to was also the U67, but that first-time clients in this studio always expect to see a 47 set up, as it's such a part of the image of that room. Oh yes, Grey Poupon mustard of microphones and artisanal free-range grass fed microphone cables and all that... |
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Post by antbar on Jun 5, 2023 11:47:15 GMT -6
I was vocalist in a French band a few years back and we worked together for the first time in an iconic studio. The engineer pulled up a U47 - first time I'd ever seen one in my life. We were getting things dialed in when I asked if it'd be cool to try a 67 as well. The engineer was more than happy to accommodate. He explained that his go-to was also the U67, but that first-time clients in this studio always expect to see a 47 set up, as it's such a part of the image of that room. Oh yes, Grey Poupon mustard of microphones and artisanal free-range grass fed microphone cables and all that... Well, for what it's worth, the band was (mostly) French but the studio was in London. Not sure if Colman's Mustard serves the image quite as well, tho... |
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Post by chessparov on Jun 5, 2023 12:22:41 GMT -6
I thought about moving to France.
To jumpstart my Rap career.
As "Master Dijon"!
But I don't want to spread myself too thin.
Takes a lot of bread to live around Paris. But all this is food for thought.
Chris
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Post by chessparov on Jun 5, 2023 12:24:38 GMT -6
Saying all that I just got some real bargains by lowballing high prices with the sellers on eBay or reverb and taking chances. If you don’t care whether you win or not you have nothing to lose and as was mentioned before there is so much good boutique gear at reasonable prices that there’s nothing to stop great classic recordings. The fetishisation of old classic gear is silly and by selling mine I bought a church and built a studio which is much better for recording than some old Neves and Urei’s in a crappy space. Let the rich hipsters pay 70k for a console worth 10 or 12k for a broken Fet compressor. I’m aiming for quality and I’m not concerned with fashion. My Bock 251’s were 2k each. And likewise I sell at reasonable prices to move gear on. I don’t sit on stuff to rinse the most I can. That is for greedy gits. there is also a fetishization of 40-70 years ago instead of 20-30 odd years ago when analog gear started getting cleaner and more functional. Nothing fetishized by Neve or Urei or SSL can really touch an Aphex piece or solve as many problems as an Aphex or even a lower fidelity BSS DPR 402. I just experienced this yesterday with a snare recordings where nothing could compress the ones made in the first day of recording enough for the mix without taking the snares off except for Presswerk with its high frequency expander. The only analog compressors with that were the Aphex Expressor and Drawmer DL251 which are not fetishized. We’re in a very weird market where most new products border on toys or attempt to recreate products that most current home recordings aren’t recorded well and clean enough to utilize to get it DONE despite largely being sample and vsti based like the pop music they imitate and many commercial studios are starting to be filled with the toys to cater to them because the bands dried up with the live venues. There are still a ton of metal bands but the toy places tend to not have a mostly working console and that means not nearly enough workhorse analog processors (gates, expanders, vca compressors, parametric eqs, typical workhorse channel strips, filters, shelves) that your typical not particularly talented local metal band needs to get their mediocre music to the level of a middling metal record during tracking or the rough. So the entire production is usually assembled during the mix now for metal. If the studio resorted to most Tdm or aax dsp plugs because they didn’t have enough workhorse processors, and the band liked their monitoring mixes, so they printed them, that’s a huge handicap to the final sound because there has never been an extreme metal band I’ve worked with who was satisfied with the rough. if they multimiced a drum or cab or took dis, half of everything is often getting muted because it’s often unusable like they wasted time getting a snare bottom set up instead of getting the snare top right or screwing down the snare or bothered to set up di boxes and screwed it up anyway instead of just moving the sm57 around better on the cone to not be needed to be gutted like a fish in post. Somehow the studio recordings have gotten worse than a lot of Tascam ones I’ve worked on. Further food for thought. Sorry my Type C still isn't for sale. Paul with Morcheeba, had hits on the original AKG C3000. A guy with a wonderful Tenor, sent me an AT2020 track "secretly". As he hangs in a High End forum sometimes. Sounded fantastic! Chris |
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Post by plinker on Jun 5, 2023 19:39:05 GMT -6
You're fired, Mofo!!!
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
Posts: 16,107
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Post by ericn on Jun 5, 2023 20:07:01 GMT -6
I my dear friend literary resemble that remark 😜 |
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Post by chessparov on Jun 5, 2023 20:54:23 GMT -6
I'm trying to keep the jokes on an even keel.
You know...
Mopar.
Chris
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Post by paulcheeba on Jun 5, 2023 20:56:43 GMT -6
there is also a fetishization of 40-70 years ago instead of 20-30 odd years ago when analog gear started getting cleaner and more functional. Nothing fetishized by Neve or Urei or SSL can really touch an Aphex piece or solve as many problems as an Aphex or even a lower fidelity BSS DPR 402. I just experienced this yesterday with a snare recordings where nothing could compress the ones made in the first day of recording enough for the mix without taking the snares off except for Presswerk with its high frequency expander. The only analog compressors with that were the Aphex Expressor and Drawmer DL251 which are not fetishized. We’re in a very weird market where most new products border on toys or attempt to recreate products that most current home recordings aren’t recorded well and clean enough to utilize to get it DONE despite largely being sample and vsti based like the pop music they imitate and many commercial studios are starting to be filled with the toys to cater to them because the bands dried up with the live venues. There are still a ton of metal bands but the toy places tend to not have a mostly working console and that means not nearly enough workhorse analog processors (gates, expanders, vca compressors, parametric eqs, typical workhorse channel strips, filters, shelves) that your typical not particularly talented local metal band needs to get their mediocre music to the level of a middling metal record during tracking or the rough. So the entire production is usually assembled during the mix now for metal. If the studio resorted to most Tdm or aax dsp plugs because they didn’t have enough workhorse processors, and the band liked their monitoring mixes, so they printed them, that’s a huge handicap to the final sound because there has never been an extreme metal band I’ve worked with who was satisfied with the rough. if they multimiced a drum or cab or took dis, half of everything is often getting muted because it’s often unusable like they wasted time getting a snare bottom set up instead of getting the snare top right or screwing down the snare or bothered to set up di boxes and screwed it up anyway instead of just moving the sm57 around better on the cone to not be needed to be gutted like a fish in post. Somehow the studio recordings have gotten worse than a lot of Tascam ones I’ve worked on. Further food for thought. Sorry my Type C still isn't for sale. Paul with Morcheeba, had hits on the original AKG C3000. A guy with a wonderful Tenor, sent me an AT2020 track "secretly". As he hangs in a High End forum sometimes. Sounded fantastic! Chris The C3000 was a very poor man’s 414 and with a 9098 channel strip, Skye sound pro enough on adat. All the top pro’s and George Michael etc. said to me how do you get that vocal sound??? I said it’s just Skye’s voice. She sounded so sweet in the early days, all Cockney and naive with a touch of Sade. Now it’s all what’s the best 251? Although hearing my c12 for the first time was a moving moment. Judie Tzuke on that was special. |
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Post by chessparov on Jun 5, 2023 21:30:38 GMT -6
I did find evidence that one of Dusty's main vocal mics, was the C12. Including on "I Only Want To Be With You". Massive Dusty fan here!  Chrus |
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Post by ninworks on Jun 6, 2023 10:10:40 GMT -6
I sold my matched pair of Purple Audio Biz mic preamps on Reverb yesterday. They were only listed for 3 days before they sold which is weird because I had them listed for less money, and for a month before I took them down. I kept dropping the price until I wasn't going to anymore, and well beneath what I really wanted for them so I just gave up. I relisted them 2 weeks later for just a little less than my original asking price and they sold in 3 days. I shipped them yesterday. Hopefully there won't be any issues with the buyer. We sent messages back and forth a few times and he seemed like a good dude.
I have sold a number of things on Reverb over the years and never had any issues with any of the buyers. The only problems I have had were with scammers and they really pi$$ed me off. I have been seeing more and more of them lately. It's always the same story. They send me a message telling me their dad or uncle wants to buy it and they want me to email him off-site. Their user account usually has some kind of commercial sounding name but after a little investigation I find out they are not where the business name says they are. I had one account banned from Reverb and in retalliation they bought the item and never paid for it. That was a PITA to rectify.
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Post by lowlou on Jun 6, 2023 12:06:54 GMT -6
Moog voyager RME sold second hand for 3k+ ? Nop !
Moogerfooger MF-104M sold for 2K+ ? NOP !
Buying new is cheaper these days.
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ericn
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Balance Engineer
Posts: 16,107
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Post by ericn on Jun 6, 2023 12:53:15 GMT -6
I sold my matched pair of Purple Audio Biz mic preamps on Reverb yesterday. They were only listed for 3 days before they sold which is weird because I had them listed for less money, and for a month before I took them down. I kept dropping the price until I wasn't going to anymore, and well beneath what I really wanted for them so I just gave up. I relisted them 2 weeks later for just a little less than my original asking price and they sold in 3 days. I shipped them yesterday. Hopefully there won't be any issues with the buyer. We sent messages back and forth a few times and he seemed like a good dude. I have sold a number of things on Reverb over the years and never had any issues with any of the buyers. The only problems I have had were with scammers and they really pi$$ed me off. I have been seeing more and more of them lately. It's always the same story. They send me a message telling me their dad or uncle wants to buy it and they want me to email him off-site. Their user account usually has some kind of commercial sounding name but after a little investigation I find out they are not where the business name says they are. I had one account banned from Reverb and in retalliation they bought the item and never paid for it. That was a PITA to rectify. For some items it’s about the right place at the right time. Most of us don’t really sell enough used gear and the same piece to truly understand the market. |
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Post by Ward on Jun 6, 2023 13:01:20 GMT -6
I sold my matched pair of Purple Audio Biz mic preamps on Reverb yesterday. They were only listed for 3 days before they sold which is weird because I had them listed for less money, and for a month before I took them down. I kept dropping the price until I wasn't going to anymore, and well beneath what I really wanted for them so I just gave up. I relisted them 2 weeks later for just a little less than my original asking price and they sold in 3 days. I shipped them yesterday. Hopefully there won't be any issues with the buyer. We sent messages back and forth a few times and he seemed like a good dude. I have sold a number of things on Reverb over the years and never had any issues with any of the buyers. The only problems I have had were with scammers and they really pi$$ed me off. I have been seeing more and more of them lately. It's always the same story. They send me a message telling me their dad or uncle wants to buy it and they want me to email him off-site. Their user account usually has some kind of commercial sounding name but after a little investigation I find out they are not where the business name says they are. I had one account banned from Reverb and in retalliation they bought the item and never paid for it. That was a PITA to rectify. Advertise them for too little and nobody wants them: "Why so cheap, what's wrong with them?" |
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Post by Ward on Jun 6, 2023 13:02:07 GMT -6
I'm trying to keep the jokes on an even keel. You know... Mopar. Chris I wasn't aware Mopar made watercraft. |
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ericn
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Posts: 16,107
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Post by ericn on Jun 6, 2023 13:19:38 GMT -6
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Post by ninworks on Jun 6, 2023 16:03:02 GMT -6
I sold my matched pair of Purple Audio Biz mic preamps on Reverb yesterday. They were only listed for 3 days before they sold which is weird because I had them listed for less money, and for a month before I took them down. I kept dropping the price until I wasn't going to anymore, and well beneath what I really wanted for them so I just gave up. I relisted them 2 weeks later for just a little less than my original asking price and they sold in 3 days. I shipped them yesterday. Hopefully there won't be any issues with the buyer. We sent messages back and forth a few times and he seemed like a good dude. I have sold a number of things on Reverb over the years and never had any issues with any of the buyers. The only problems I have had were with scammers and they really pi$$ed me off. I have been seeing more and more of them lately. It's always the same story. They send me a message telling me their dad or uncle wants to buy it and they want me to email him off-site. Their user account usually has some kind of commercial sounding name but after a little investigation I find out they are not where the business name says they are. I had one account banned from Reverb and in retalliation they bought the item and never paid for it. That was a PITA to rectify. Advertise them for too little and nobody wants them: "Why so cheap, what's wrong with them?" I didn't start out with them cheap. Something I did the second time I listed them was offered free shipping. I raised the price enough to pay for that 3 times over. Yeah, that's REALLY free. I guess I need to raise the price some more and see if I can think of anything else to offer for free. Maybe double the price and offer to pay the sales taxes.....for "free." |
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Post by Ward on Jun 6, 2023 16:21:41 GMT -6
Advertise them for too little and nobody wants them: "Why so cheap, what's wrong with them?" I didn't start out with them cheap. Something I did the second time I listed them was offered free shipping. I raised the price enough to pay for that 3 times over. Yeah, that's REALLY free. I guess I need to raise the price some more and see if I can think of anything else to offer for free. Maybe double the price and offer to pay the sales taxes.....for "free." Just a good general rule of thumb, that's all. |
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Post by cowboycoalminer on Jun 9, 2023 14:01:36 GMT -6
I'm thinking folks are thinking way more these days about basic needs than anything else. The top Youtube searches recently are for homesteading and gardening videos. People seem to know something major is about to happen and survival instinct is kicking in wether they even realize it or not. Although every singer I've ever recorded has a tendency to, you can't really eat a mic. I'm about on the same page with most of these people who are thinking more about survival than general interests. Those who are trying to run this world are absolute idiots. Let's save our money brethren, hards times are coming and those like nothing this world has ever seen before.
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 9, 2023 15:38:13 GMT -6
The older I get, the less I need. Cowboycoalminer makes a good point. One aspect of the rising vintage gear prices is that with so many good quality options, it's mostly serious pros who who are willing to buy something as esoteric as an original LA2A or 1176, or a U47, etc. So those prices have risen sharply, because if you "have to have it", you'll pay whatever.
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Post by Johnkenn on Jun 21, 2023 10:11:28 GMT -6
Man…the used market seems completely dead. In the past, at the right price, I could sell something like a sta-level in a day or two. I’ve had one up for like two months now. Surprising. Big ticket items just aren’t selling like they used to - or maybe the market is just saturated with sta-levels.
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ericn
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Posts: 16,107
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Post by ericn on Jun 21, 2023 10:40:39 GMT -6
Man…the used market seems completely dead. In the past, at the right price, I could sell something like a sta-level in a day or two. I’ve had one up for like two months now. Surprising. Big ticket items just aren’t selling like they used to - or maybe the market is just saturated with sta-levels. I’ll blame Audioscape on this one, while they don’t quite nail the Sta it’s a pretty decent clone and the market is having a hard time justifying the additional cost. Look at it this way, if it doesn’t sell there is no chance it will get lost in the UPS ecosystem if there is a strike. For the last week every deal I have made has included no UPS in the terms. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2023 11:10:28 GMT -6
Man…the used market seems completely dead. In the past, at the right price, I could sell something like a sta-level in a day or two. I’ve had one up for like two months now. Surprising. Big ticket items just aren’t selling like they used to - or maybe the market is just saturated with sta-levels. retro gear burn out and a recession |
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