The HiFi Five Episode 38: Buying Used Components and Repairs

The HiFi Five Episode 38:  Buying Used Components and Repairs

Guests:

Morrison Agen -- Hardcore HiFi, a dealer and component repair and restoration business 

Jay Caceres -- Jay’s Audio Lab, a dealer in used components 

Peter Glenn -- Director of Quality Assurance at The Music Room, a dealer in used components

Jim Yager -- audiophile hobbyist

Topics:

Is buying used actually the smartest way to build a great high-end audio system?

What high-end components are safest to buy used -- and which are the biggest gamble?

What components are easiest to resell -- and which ones can you get stuck with?

Are used high-end audio prices getting ridiculous -- or are today’s prices actually justified?

How big does the used discount have to be before you’re willing to give up the security of a factory warranty?

What actually breaks more often:  relatively new high-end components or vintage gear -- and are tubes or solid state easier to keep running?

How does Jay’s Audio Lab and The Music Room determine their buying prices and their selling prices?

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to the 38th episode of the Hi-Fi Five. I'm Ron Resnick. Please like this video and subscribe to the channel. You are watching, which is great, but you gotta subscribe. Tonight's show is about buying used components and repairs. Our guest tonight, Morrison Agin of Hardcore Hi-Fi, a dealer in component repair and restoration business. Jay Casaris of Jay's Audio Lab, a dealer in used components. Welcome back, Jay. Peter Glenn is the director of quality assurance at the music room, a dealer in used components. And my dear friend Jim Yeager, audiophile hobbyist who has a lot of experience buying and selling used components, especially when his wife goes out of town for a while. Good evening, gentlemen. Good evening, Enron. Good evening, Ron. Topic number one Is buying used the most cost-efficient and possibly the smartest way to build a high-end audio system?

SPEAKER_03 0:50

Jim. Let's rip the band-aid off, I guess, huh? Uh yes, yes, it is. I've uh done it for years, especially when you're trying to figure out what you want in a system. And that way you can you can buy, you can experiment. If you buy it secondhand, you're not paying full retail for it, you're paying maybe 50% off or even more. And that way you can sell it when you're done with it. Jay.

SPEAKER_04 1:21

So for me personally, I would say yes and no, but it depends on the buyer. If you are a person that has no clue uh as far as how to connect stuff and you know how to put together a system, I would say no, it's a mistake. Because at the end of the day, you still need a dealer's advice, you know, expert advice, and obviously he should have some sort of education, at least from his own trials, as far as how to connect a sound system. Uh, so it has to do with the buyer, in my opinion. You know, who are they now? If you know what you're doing, you've been doing this long enough, you've been around the block. I can see that being a great option. But if you haven't, I I would say no, it isn't.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

Peter. Yeah, I'm pretty much on the same page as Jim and Jay. It's great for the dabbler. It's great for the person who's hands-on, wants to try out different pieces, wants to have people things moving in and out, or are hey, I want to try this deck for six months, nine months, twelve months, but I know I'm gonna move on to something else. Uh, isn't gonna be set on just hey, I want to set it and forget it. It's a great way for them to build a serious system and have that fun and kind of keep moving.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Larson. Um I think it it you know, again, it depends on the customer. I think it depends on what components in the system. I think that there are uh some components that are certainly um you know totally reasonable to buy used. I think if there's other components that are out there uh that um it's probably a good idea to have a warranty handy. Um not that they're trouble prone or anything like that, but but um you know, if there's if something does need some sort of service, you want to make sure that you have a support system there for you. And also not just warranty, but technical support as well. Um I think that you know, in my history, uh I've worked for lots of companies. I have my own company, obviously, but um, where tech support uh that is not um doesn't have to do with the repair of a unit, but really just the the getting in and figuring out the unit and how it's gonna integrate with your system. Um, you know, having that in your back pocket can be really important too. I had a client the other day that I was speaking to who has a very high-end SACD player, and um he just had problems like getting through menus and stuff like that. And the person he purchased it from didn't really give him the support that he felt like he needed. And uh, and really it was you know, it was pilot error. He just needed some help, but um, you know, he had bought a used unit, he didn't really have a tech support route to go to. And so there's there's that uh as well, not just the service from a repairability standpoint, but the um but having some technical support behind it.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

I am a big fan. If the audio file is at least somewhat experienced, intermediate or experienced, I think buying used is great. I think it's a great way to audition components in situ in your own home in your own systems while minimizing your financial risk. So I generally encourage people to buy used. What types of components are easiest to sell, and what types of components are the most difficult to sell? Peter.

SPEAKER_02 4:56

Small things are the easiest to sell. So yeah, selling decks, selling things like that, things that you can ship easily. Um don't require a lot of effort to package. Um that's usually the easiest for people to sell. The most difficult, large, large amps, large speakers. Uh an average person isn't doesn't have any freight experience, uh, doesn't have that experience to really get it to someone safely, and can really be a pretty big, a big hat problem if there is any sort of issue at all.

unknown 5:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Morrison, what do you think? What's the easiest thing for people to sell use and what's the hardest thing for people to sell?

SPEAKER_00 5:36

I'm very much going to concur with Peter. I do a lot of freight shipping. Um, and so I educate a lot of my customers, um, both if they're sending something to me uh to have me work on. Um, you know, like for instance, Jim, I worked on a set of his uh Lamb monoblock amplifiers, and those came to us via freight. And uh, you know, we had to have a conversation about how the stuff needed to get packaged, how it needed to come to us, things like that. Um, you know, so I I definitely concur with you there. Um, also those larger items, there's um, you know, there's definitely a greater chance of something happening in transit where you don't really have that issue with the smaller item.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Jay, what do you find is easiest to sell and easiest to buy?

SPEAKER_04 6:23

Easiest to sell is probably the smaller items. Um, to sell cables are easy. DAX, we're in the digital age, up to a certain price point. Uh, of course, you know nothing that is six figures is gonna ever be easy to sell, you know. Um, but for the most part, now most systems have a DAC of some sort. Um and to buy, I'd say for people to buy is usually anything that has to be more with the price, in my opinion, to buy. Budget constraints have a lot to say whether something's easy or hard to buy. So I would say probably again, I would say DAX and pre-amplifiers under 10 grand, stuff like that is a lot easier. Amps, you know, Luxman, for example, sim audios of the world, anything under 15k that's easier to sell.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

So a common, so the less expensive and the smaller, the easier.

SPEAKER_04 7:16

Without a doubt. The thing about this, uh, and and I meant to make a video about this the other day. Um, unfortunately, affordable stuff um, you know, is not sexy in many people's eyes. But it is sexy when you can buy something heavily discounted and depreciated that you normally couldn't afford. That makes it more enticing for people, which is unfortunate because that's what forces manufacturers to not release affordable products as often as they should. When you have all your research making products that are, let's say, we saw a batch of new electronics as of what, a year to two years ago? 10 grand, 12,000 for preamps and amps. No one's talking about it because it's not sexy, but it is sexy to steal a speaker that's 100 grand for $10,000. That's why. So you have to think about it like that. And it's not sexy to buy a Toyota Camry, but it is sexy to buy an Asta Martin for 90 grand, right? Because it is 270,000. That's the best analogy I can give you.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Jim, what do you think is easiest to buy and sell? What are you most comfortable buying and selling?

SPEAKER_03 8:16

Uh what everybody else has said, it's about that's uh that's spot on. It's uh obviously it's gonna be hard for me to sell 525-pound speakers, but uh for buying stuff used, I the one thing I don't like to buy used is turntables. I because that's more of an intimate uh you're that's something you're very intimate with. You're touching it, you're feeling it, and turntables to me, I just hate to have them shipped. And uh not great at setting them up, so I always have somebody else set them up. But when it comes to used gear, just what everybody else said, basically.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Topic three, what components are the riskiest to buy used? Jim, you just suggested that you don't care to buy turntables used. Uh Morrison, what do you think is the riskiest to buy used and what's the safest to buy used?

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Gosh. Um, so you know, first off, I think it has to do with there's so much to it has to do with the person that you're buying it from, right? The the person that you're buying it from has to be somebody who's reputable and at least like willing to have a phone call with you and stuff like that. And you know, you got to get a good feeling for this person. That being said, um the riskiest to buy used, um I will say every time I've shipped a tube amp, I have done so like with my fingers crossed and just praying, you know, um, because there's uh there's there's just so many things that can go wrong. And and I absolutely bulletproof everything that goes out the door. Um, but you know, we uh we have a I'll I'll say I have a very, very good relationship with um ArcBest Freight. Uh because if I think that there's even a hint that something could go south, I'm always gonna recommend a freight shipment. Um, even for for you know what would normal people would throw in UPS, you know. Um I'll always recommend a freight shipment just because I know it's gonna get there safest. That's the riskiest thing for me.

SPEAKER_04 10:29

Okay. Riskiest anything that's got tubes in it. Uh reason one, it can shatter, those tubes can definitely shatter. Um, two, you have high failure rates with tubes. So now you get a product that doesn't work as specified. So now you're scrambling trying to figure out is it a tube? The reason why the left channel is sounding it has less gain than the right channel than the left channel. So you become like uh a technician in so many ways, and that's simply because of the tube technology. That's not to say that's every product, okay? But for the most part, you're more prone to failures with tube gear, especially with when it comes to transportation. There's definitely going to be more challenges into your point, Morris. And that's really the key. It's just packing the product properly, yeah, and doing the best you can in freight a hundred percent. And if they don't want to take it because they want to save money by do they just want to go ground? I'll make them sign a piece of paper and you know, tell them, hey, you're on your own if it breaks and it arrives damage. That's you. 100%. 100.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Yeah, Peter, what do you find? What's the uh riskiest to buy and sell used?

SPEAKER_02 11:37

I mean, I could get certainly go tubes, but uh just to kind of go in a different direction. Uh disc players are pretty pretty risky at times.

SPEAKER_04 11:44

You could see that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Like they they also quite frankly, I'm concerned about the the parts not being available very soon. Just a lot of them are just flat out not manufactured. Sure, they're not gonna be they're not gonna be around, and there's a lot of the really fantastic disc players that you can't get optical drives for. You can't get these parts.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Name 5x5.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

You're just you're just SOL at that point, and there's nothing you can there's nothing you can do. And and uh the other portion of it, much like tubes, they always had a failure rate that we just have we're getting better in our technology with digital streaming things, it just doesn't happen anymore. So people are used to this level of performance, so this level level of like just usability all the time. The disc players always had issues with tape, always had issues with, and we've just kind of forgotten about so uh they make they worry me a bit.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Yeah, I'm most uncomfortable. I kind of agree with Jim. For some reason, I get fidgety about the idea of buying a turntable. You don't know, maybe they did something with a bearing, or they you know, something they put pressure on it or something. And cartridges are also personally, I would find cartridges to buy scary. And as far as um difficult, I think large tube amps might be the most difficult thing to sell. I had a pair of 200 pounds each, each amp is 200 pounds, tube amps on sale for two years, couldn't sell them to save my life, and I was asking like 25% of MSRP. Turns out my system made a full 360 degree 180, and now I'm actually glad I didn't sell them because now I happen to be using those same tube amps very happily in their permanent keepers, but giant super heavy tube amps couldn't sell to save my life for two years. So I think those are pretty difficult to sell. Topic four are today's used prices higher or lower than they should be, Jay.

SPEAKER_04 13:42

It's it depends who you ask. If you ask a broke person, they're higher than they should be. Um, that's the truth, right? Um but I would say they're lower, and that is due to uh dealers discounting products. Um, you know, I've said it a million times. That's what makes the unfortunately the second head market plummet. The initial discounting.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Tell us that that structure that you're talking about. What is the structure that you're describing that results in the used prices being lower than they should be?

SPEAKER_04 14:11

Um, dealer discounts product right out of the gate by 20%, 25% to this customer just to make the sale in fear that this customer is gonna go knocking on some other doors, trying to get the best possible price. Customer gets it in, buys it, say a hundred thousand dollar speakers, gets them for 80. Six months later, he's bored, he's got a change of heart, he wants to buy another set of speakers, knocks on somebody else's door. That's a dealer. Hey, I want to trade you this in. Okay, what do you want to buy? I want to buy this other set of speakers. Let's say that speaker is 100 grand. Dealer says, Okay, I'll give you, you know, approximately uh, let's say uh 60,000 on trading, right? 40% off of MSRP. But that customer only lost 20% right there, right? He didn't lose the full 40%. So now that product arrives at this in the secondhand market for 50 to 60 points off, and that it all starts because of that initial discount. If that customer had bought it at the original MSRP of 100 grand, there's no way in hell he's taking a $40,000 bath to change out speakers. So that makes people retain their product for longer. There is going to be a lot less slipping. The more people have in their products, the less willing they are to get rid of it. Now, there are some exceptions to that rule. If you're well off, you don't give a shit. You just want to make a change. But most people are concerned with the money they spend, even in hi-fi. So the less, the more the more they lose, the the less they're willing to sell this product. And so sometimes we see that reflect itself in the secondhand market when you see products that are brand new current you know units selling for 50 points off. That's just an indication that the dealer who sold it discounted it.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

And so that dealer discounting tends to tends to encourage turnover.

SPEAKER_04 16:03

Because now your losses are only 20, maybe 15 if you got a deeper discount, the 25 points. So you can play all day long, all year round, losing only 15%. That's not a bad proposition because that's you know a yearly depreciation, cost of use, if you want to call it. That's not bad. People are willing to play if that's all you're losing every time you swap out gear, up to a certain price point.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

But you're saying you think dealers will take trade-in at 40% off MSRP?

SPEAKER_04 16:31

No, usually the standard practice, you know, usually I mean it's just you know, whatever the MSRP that has to do with a lot of factors. If you're asking me, I need to know where you got it. Do you have the original receipt? If I found out you discount, you got it at a discount. I'm starting the MSRP at what you paid for it. That's the new MSRP. So I'm gonna start taking off the top from what you paid for it to give you trading value on something I've got. And so when they mention a dealer to me, I know the ones that are discounters. So I you don't even have to tell me. I know when you tell me as dealer A, I know you got it for a deal, period. So I'm gonna start right where you for more or less what you got it for to give you my trading value.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Morrison, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Um, so how are you use prices today? I think that value is determined when money changes hands. That's it. So the market determines uh what stuff gets sold at, right? True. So if you have an amplifier in the marketplace and you want, let's, I'm just gonna throw out a number. You have a little tube amp and you want four grand for it, and you get five offers for $2,500. I think you have a $2,500 amplifier in your lap, right? You probably don't have a $4,000 amplifier. You probably have a $2,500 amplifier because the world is telling you that this is a $2,500 amplifier. Uh, you may be able to talk somebody up to $27,000, $2,800, but you're probably not gonna talk them up to $3,500, right? And add as many or take away as many zeros as you want on whatever this is. And you it doesn't have to be an amplifier, it can be whatever it is. Um value is determined when money changes hands. And so I think that there's a lot of things that that uh determine um what somebody's willing to spend, including like, are they nervous about the economy today? Are they um, you know, what else is happening where um where they're gonna feel comfortable making this purchase? So, you know, um I don't I don't know if I necessarily agree with the proposition that prices are too high or too low. They're just the world is who I don't I don't uh make up the prices on anything the rest of the world does.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

Jim Morrison and Jay are both right. Uh the market is the market. Uh like in the automobile business, if a car has a ten thousand dollar rebate on it, that's gonna affect on a new car, that's gonna affect what that used car is worth. And that's the same thing in in audio. So if uh I I won't say where I bought it from or what, but I got 40 points off of audio research on a brand new ref 10. And uh this was two years ago.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Was that a dealer demo that wanted to just drop it?

SPEAKER_03 19:48

It was a dealer demo, it was a demo, but uh yeah, you can you can get deep discounts and it's still a lot of money, but you can you can have it for a year or two and sell it and not get that hurt. Now, uh I I don't agree with Jay, where he says that if somebody gets a discount, he's gonna find out how much he paid for it. It shouldn't matter how much I paid for it. The market is the market. And say I got a you know, so uh yeah, no, I understand your point.

SPEAKER_04 20:25

Your point makes sense what you're saying. That there's no yeah, uh, I I wouldn't disagree with your point. I just see it as um, you know, the the fact that some buyers are you know not they want the lowest possible price on what they're buying and the highest ma trade in value. And I understand that because I also like to swap out vehicles, so we play that game at car dealers all the time. There's nothing wrong with it. But now when you're other when you're on the other side of the fence wearing the hat of a dealer, it changes for you completely. Well, of course, because you have expense, you have expenses, you have uh but I do understand you as a consumer, absolutely agree with you.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Yep, Peter, what do you think about um use prices?

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Um I think they're about right because, like like Morrison said, they really set themselves. It really doesn't matter if if if a manufacturer says that this is a fifty thousand dollar preamp, but no one will buy it for for over 10 grand, then it's a ten thousand dollar preamp. And they're not tied to global supply chain or anything like that. It's what do people want for right now? We're far more concerned about what we can sell it for. I don't really at the end of the day, I don't care what the what the MSRP is. You can uh set it, the sky's the limit. Great, that's cool. Right. This is what it is, what it is. This is what people are interested in now, and for for whatever reason they are, that's what it's worth.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

And that that's a good point because some manufacturers and their their networks have the business model of. Of raising the price to facilitate the dealer discounting it, which kind of initiates the race to the bottom pricing process that Jay was talking about.

SPEAKER_04 22:12

Yep, that's why you see inflated lines. Now, this is exactly the perfect way of connecting the dots, which is why is Hi-Fi in the new market having these ridiculous MSRP prices. It's exactly because of how customer behavior is now today, like how what their expectations are. So that's why everything is inflated to kind of correct that problem down low.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

And you're saying is that because what happened first the chicken or the egg, though? Agreed. You inflated the manufacturer.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

The manufacturer sets the price, but you're saying that are you you're all saying that the manufacturer inflates the price because the customer likes to feel he got a discount off the box, you know, out of the box off of MSRP. So to give every customer a 20% discount, all you have to do is inflate the price by 20%.

unknown 23:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 23:06

Sure, figure it out. But the problem is the expectation becomes um, you know, and I think look, it has to do, there is a lot of different nuances to this. Uh, one of them being the wrong dealers, of course, dealers that are desperate for money, that can't pay their bills, they're pouring stuff out. That's a different conversation altogether. But that that has a lot to do with what happens in the secondhand market. You know, the music room is great at doing what they do, but they they spend a ton of marketing dollars. I mean, they pop up on my on freaking fake uh YouTube every time I'm watching a video asking me to send them their gear, send me send me your gear, you know, we're gonna help you sell it. So they're there, I want to be like the music room, but in a in a different scale in a lower scale with higher end stuff. I would love to be like the music room, hands down, but I don't have the staff, the employees, the manpower they got, technicians on the site. I don't I don't have all of that. It'll be hard for me to catch up to catch up to them.

SPEAKER_01 23:58

Topic five What are the pros and cons for consumers of online platforms such as AudioGone, US Audio Mart, and eBay versus online dealers like Jay, like Peter at the music room, like SkyFi. Jim, let's start with you. What are the pros and cons of how consumers buy the products?

SPEAKER_03 24:16

Well, when you're buying from individuals, usually you can get a better price because you don't have the order overhead like uh like Jay has and like the music room has. Uh the music room, especially, because they do have technicians and they do go through their gear. So that's something that's another level, you know. Um, but you do take a chance when you buy from the individuals, and that that's that's okay when you have a a technician like uh Morrison. You have somebody like Morrison that uh man, by the way, Shams plug, I gotta give him his flowers. The lambs sound fantastic. And uh that is the I'm just blown away. I'm just blown away.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

But but those took everything, those took everything to get done right. Every power resistor on the let's move on, gentlemen.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

No infomercials.

SPEAKER_03 25:23

But uh, but when you're but when you do do that and you do buy from U.S. Audi Mart and Audio Gun, and you buy from these individuals uh a couple things. I'd like to talk to them on the phone. Okay, and some some of these platforms make that quite difficult to do that, especially eBay. Uh, I want to know who the heck I'm buying from because frankly, when you ask them a question and these one-word answers through Audio Gun just doesn't don't fly with me.

SPEAKER_04 25:55

Yeah, I agree.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Yeah, yeah, and then when you're dealing with eBay, we're throwing $20,000 across the internet.

SPEAKER_03 26:02

Exactly. Exactly. So uh yep, but uh that's it. They both have their place though. Morrison.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

So yeah, I think um so I do my best to not be anonymous when I'm I'm uh you know putting uh our products out on different websites. Like we have we have an audio uh audio gone store and we list stuff on eBay and things like that. And um, I always make sure that everybody knows like basically our pedigree, what we do. Um, you know, we're a warranty service supplier for 13 different luxury audio brands. We do lots of different stuff and and everything that we put out in the universe, we make sure that we have eyes on and that it has our technician's thumbprint that says this is good to go before it walks out the door. You know, but everybody's gonna be a little bit different. You know, some people are just you know kind of horse trading and and doing their thing, and and uh um I'm never gonna be that person who tells somebody else how to spend their money. So whatever, however they feel comfortable is fine. I know how I feel comfortable, and I don't even feel comfortable selling something without having a phone call with somebody. Um, and so I you know, part of that is just also just having a relationship with people. And and um, you know, this business and every business is all about relationships. It's uh the boxes that we sell, you know, they're gonna come and go, but the uh the the friends that we make along the way, those are there forever. So 100%.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Yeah, I've I mean obviously you can get it for cheaper. We have you know, we have overhead, we have this big building, we've got technicians, we've got all the things. We're also doing shipping, some of those things at scale, which does also help kind of reduce that and kind of offset some of those costs at for the end product, um, where we're kind of building that in. I mean, there's there's just also the benefit of shipping, being able to like we were talking about earlier, having quality being able to ship something properly, being able to ship it safely, be able to get it to you. There's also quite frankly, just some of the like financial risks, some of the financial scam stuff. Like you just you get you sell it to a customer, you know, we're able to kind of handle all of those things, you know. Even it's just it's out there, both both coming and going. You it someone's gonna try to rip you off. Um, and or or they're not gonna know what to do when there is a problem, and they're not gonna have any infrastructure. They're like, Well, I already spent that money and there is an issue, you've only said they're gonna do it. So it's something to certainly consider. You can get it cheaper from an individual, but there's certainly some risk with that, yeah.

unknown 29:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 29:05

So I'm gonna speak from experience. Um, I have been uh taken out three times in my entire, I don't want to say career, my entire time doing uh business here in the hi-fi world. So to the tune of over a hundred thousand dollars gone. Okay. I wanted to go the legal route, but I couldn't. Now, why am I saying this? It's because uh eventually, if you're wheeling and dealing aggressively, write it down. It is 8 29 p.m. You will be taken out. I promise you. It will be a matter of time before you get taken out. If you keep doing that long enough, it will come to you. Believe me when I say that. When the price is too good to be true, it probably is. I'm telling you right now, it probably is. I have had people that are looking to do wheeling and dealing, fell off the back of the truck type of pricing. That white minivan that pulls up at Home Depot that's selling sound systems all in a box. You guys have heard about that minivan. Trust me, okay. Trust me, that shit is coming after you. Okay, so what I'm gonna say is let those that are real solid business make a little more money from you. You go to sleep at night, you can pay with a credit card, you don't have to worry about shit. So, what if it was three grand more? If you're that broke that three thousand dollars is gonna change your life, brother, you should be doing something else, not hi-fi. You should be doing something else with your money, right? So that's just how I feel. Let people, you know, make a little more money on you, but you got you establish your relationship with a real business, music room, real business. You know, they got to his point, to Peter's point, they got overhead. And so I I have seen time and time again where people come to me, uh two clients of mine, perfect examples. Both of them try to buy something off of me. We couldn't come to terms with you know what they wanted to pay. Both of them vanished. One month, one month later, one of them tells me he wired money to Europe for a DCS dock, never so never saw the dock. He got pictures, he got videos, everything gone. Money's gone. The other one wanted to find a deal on VAC gear. I had a couple of amplifiers that were used for sale. He decided to buy from a dealer, a wannabe dealer. Turns out he was never a dealer, but he found out after he sent the money to that person. He never bothered to check the website of the manufacturer that he indeed if he was a dealer or not.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

He just took it for at his word, gone. Look, my personal view is you guys provide a service that is valuable that people should be willing to pay an increment for. There is no doubt that you guys, because you guys have to maintain your reputation, you are going to do pretty much whatever it takes to make those transaction participants happy because you've got to maintain your representative your reputation. And that means real value in terms of reducing the risk of the purchase or the seller. So I don't think people should begrudge you your cut. That's my personal view. Topic six how often in your personal experience do sellers misrepresent the condition of their components in their ads or the condition of their components and their oral descriptions to you, Peter.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

A lot, but I don't, I also don't feel like it's intentional. Right. It happens all the time. I think they're they they're not getting it out in the light, they're not looking at it like it's a new prize product that they just bought. They're pulling it out of their system, it was working for them. Um and it isn't what exactly what they what they said it was. And that's okay. Like that that's okay. Um but but there is there is a fair amount of times where it's like, yeah, this is good, but it's not clearly what it not exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_04 32:49

Jay. Well, the condition of a product is highly subjective. A 10 out of 10 might be someone else's eight out of ten, seven out of ten. Now, I do I do know there are descriptions within like audio on that tell you if it has a scratch on the front plate, that makes it a nine, if it has three scratches around, that makes it a set. I understand all of that. Um, I do agree with Peter. Sometimes they're not intentional, but oftentimes I would say it's a 50-50 for me. When I buy stuff, 50-50. You're gonna encounter something that you it was misrepresented. You they never told you they rolled tubes, the original tubes, for example, Macintosh product. You want to have the original tubes in there. Uh, they never told you they rolled them. And when they inserted the new ones or the whatever they used, they inserted them wrong, they came in loose. They never told you that. Oh, yeah, I did roll tubes, I forgot to tell you that. That matters, and then now I have to figure out how to make it right for the next person. So I would say for me, it's generally speaking, 50-50 as far as how accurate the condition of the products are.

SPEAKER_01 33:51

And you and I have discussed that buyers, even buyers of used components, they want it in new condition, even though they're buying it.

SPEAKER_04 33:57

That's another problem. It's really it's the most ridiculous things ever. Like the uh there's a scratch under the chassis. On the where? On the underneath the chassis, under the speaker. Like, there's a scratch underneath, really. Oh, you're gonna be. I mean, who looks underneath? Okay, there's stupid stuff like there's dust on the AC inlet. Like, there is really you didn't tell me what's so dumb. I mean, stupid things like that. Ridiculous. Like, I had a guy show up, not even kidding you. I was selling us an esoteric super audio CD player. We made a deal verbally. He drove to my house in Florida, he shows up, walks right through the door, and literally feels the edges on the front plate of the esoteric because there's a lot of ridges on the edge on the esoteric super audio CD players. He felt something with his fingers. He said he couldn't buy it because he would never be able to go to sleep at night, knowing that there is something there that he couldn't see, but he could feel he could you couldn't see it. You have to put your fingers and and do this. He didn't buy it. I'm telling you right now, it's crazy shit like this. And I'm like, dude, you're buying it for like 40 off because it's used. There's none on the used market.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

You're looking at it, and you can't solve that either.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Right. Nobody ever said there was not a lot of neurosis in this hobby.

SPEAKER_03 35:08

Jim, you know what? I I haven't had much trouble. Uh I've I always take very good photos when I saw something. I'm the guy that puts a pin next to the scratch. If there's a little scratch there, that's great to show it. I'm that guy. And then when I buy it, I I just ask for additional photos. And if I don't think the photos are that clear, so I've never I've got some stuff in that I weren't wasn't completely happy with, but you know what? That's a chance I take, you know, and it's okay, but I haven't had much problems. It's communication, just like any type of relationship.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Yeah. Marshall, what's been your experience?

SPEAKER_00 35:55

So uh I not only deal in audio equipment, but I deal in physical media, so I buy records all the time. And holy smokes, that stuff comes in in any various amounts. That's a that's a different thing, right there. Totally different thing. Yeah, just like, oh yeah. Anytime that I've found that somebody is, the more often that they say that something is, and they use the word mint, the more often that they use that, the less likely that I am to believe it. Um, but uh, because nothing is mint, literally nothing is mint. There's factory sealed, which is what we call assumed mint, but there is no 10 out of 10 in literally anything. Yeah, I feel about that's the way I feel about that. And so, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:46

And you know, you know what I tell them, uh uh Morrison when they uh when they tell me the condition that it's in. I said, dude, if you're looking for no signs of use, buy new plus docks, period. That's that's what I tell you in the conversation. It's used shit. You know, it's why does the car have some hairlines on the front bumper? It's got fucking 10,000 miles, dude. It's not a new car.

SPEAKER_03 37:05

I'm in the automobile business, so I know that.

SPEAKER_04 37:08

So yeah, yeah, but then you would know, like it's used, dude. It's got you need some touch up, yeah, dude. It's got it's got 70,000 miles on it.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

I have I personally have a neurotic thing about scratches, but even I, if it's used, it's gonna have a scratch on it.

SPEAKER_04 37:24

It's gonna have to have something squirrel marks, or even you know, JL Audio subwoofers, most people don't know. Fresh out of the box, they have hairlines on them because of the freaking cloth they used to cover them. It puts hairlines on them. I sold a new one, seal. The guy returned it. It's he said it wasn't new, it had hairlines on it, and it was brand new, sealed.

SPEAKER_03 37:45

But it's funny, then you see some of this gear and you go, How the hell did they fuck it up that bad? Sure, yeah. You know, I would have to be that I would hate to be that guy's do that.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

It went through a meat grinder, yeah. Topic seven. This is an important one. How should consumers decide if the discount they're buying used justifies buying without a factory warranty versus paying more for maybe a dealer demo component at a smaller discount, but getting a factory warranty? Where does the discount percentage off of MSRT, MSRP, that helps the consumer decide where the cutoff justifies buying without a factory warranty? Jay.

SPEAKER_04 38:32

I would say if the savings are so substantial that chances are it won't cost that much money to repair it if they have to ship it back to the factory. So if you're buying something 30 cents on the dollar, you know, it's not gonna cost you a car to repair it. You see what I'm saying? So this is kind of like how you have to look at it. Typically, this happens with imported goods quite often, especially if they have been discontinued. So that's pretty much the only reason or way I would say that anyone should consider buying secondhand. But if you are uh, you know, in buying gray market stuff, that's a whole different ballgame. There's a difference here, and this question can be tied together to gray market stuff, by the way, because you know that comes in heavily discounted and the savings are substantial. That's a whole different thing. So I would say justify it if you're getting it cheap enough, say 30 cents on the dollar, to say that's fine, I'll bypass a dealer demo. Uh, that could be, you know, I don't know, only 40% off of MSRP. Let's say if the dealer's looking to unload it. Uh, but uh but you know what? If it's a complex thing, a lot of moving parts, a lot of things that can go wrong. I would say you gotta have that warranty, man. Gotta have that warranty because that that thing can make three trips to the factory, and it will basically you now ended up overpaying for the item by the time it comes back to you every time.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Uh, please explain your gray market points. You're saying gray market, if it comes in, it does not travel with a factory warranty.

SPEAKER_04 40:00

Never. Gray market product does not travel. If you get caught with gray market stuff, you are done. You have to ship it back overseas to get a repair. And I don't want to tell you the bill you get in the mail from U.S. Customs for tariffs. And if you don't pay it, prove it. And then you got a it's a shit show. Online, emails, proof, all this crap. It's a nightmare. If not, you got a bill on top of you, and every time you export stuff, if it's an individual, your socialist, they know it, they don't need to have your digits, they know exactly who you are. You'll get they'll get your address and they'll tie it to you, believe me. And then once that happens, good luck trying to get anything through customs. They won't they won't allow anything that comes your way if you don't pay it. Ever.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

Morrison?

SPEAKER_00 40:44

So um I have a I have a client who um we are a servicer for a pair of uh speakers that he owns. We are the stateside servicer. He bought them uh kind of sideways and does not have a warranty, and he got basically a 50% break on these. I'm not gonna say the maker model of the of the speakers, but um uh something happened that would have been covered under warranty. Basically, some loud thing happened that just really messed up these drivers in a way that is uh the only thing I can say is extremely unfortunate. Um and it's probably gonna need new drivers all the way through both sides. And um he needs to send the speakers to us to have it happen because either the speakers need to come to us or we need to go to the speakers. I don't send parts to just some guy to have him put in his his speakers, not if you want them to be right. Um, and so he's probably gonna spend the other 50% of that having me get this done. So didn't work out in that case, and then he still doesn't have a warranty by the time it's all done. He just got them repaired, um, with things like uh CD players, SACD players, things like that, um, you know, CD transports, um, where you know, if they get shipped without the transport screws being installed, you're gonna have a problem. We have another amplifier that's uh that's in that's another one that we do uh warranty service for that was sent to us to have eyeballs on. And when it was packaged, this amplifier didn't have transport screws put in it. Well, golly, the transformer just went and just ricocheted all through this thing. It's totaled, it is 100% totaled. It's a you know, many thousands of dollars worth of amplifier, and it's there's nothing you can do about it. Uh, everything in there is broken. Um just because somebody shipped it poorly. And so, you know, you just um I so I don't know that I can really comment on what's a percentage that's worth the risk, but um, you know, if you are not terribly risk averse and you're willing to roll the dice on stuff, then um okay, you know, just know that not having a service um resort for you may be a thing. Not having technical support is certainly gonna be a thing. Um you know, it's just uh it really just depends, I think, on the uh on the end user and what his risk tolerance is.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Jim, how big a discount do you look for if you're not getting any kind of transferable warranty?

SPEAKER_03 44:07

Well, I'm one of those guys. I did buy a gray market piece. Uh it was off of eBay. It was a Sole Note DS Audio uh photo stage. And it was about a 60% discount. And I believe uh um you're a dealer to that, aren't you? Uh the Soul Note, the um music room, right? You're a dealer to that? Yes. For solo, yeah. This is before you became a dealer. This was about three years ago, and I couldn't find a dealer anywhere. So I I rolled the dice. I figured, uh, you know what? It's a phono stage, nothing's gonna go wrong, and I've been I've been lucky. So I would say it just depends on what it is 25 to 60, whatever it's around there, but uh I rolled the dice a couple times 20 per 25 to 60 per 25 to 60 off of MSRP. Yes, it just depends on what it is. Uh but now it it might sound like that I'm all against dealers and I'm not not at all. I bought a lot of stuff from dealers and still continue to do that, and I want to support dealers uh as much as I can, and uh so I don't want to sound like I'm I'm against dealers because I I deal with them all the time.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

So Peter, yeah, I gotta go. It's it's it's hard to say exactly what that percentage off should be. Um it kind of depends on the type of unit that you're dealing with. Like a lot of the stuff that Morrison was talking about, like most manufacturers aren't gonna cover it. If thing was shipped poorly, is damaged, you're out of luck, anyways. Um one perspective I I do see a fair amount though in terms of failures is that a unit having six months or 12 months or 18 months under its belt isn't always a bad thing. Like we have a greater failure rate on new products than we do on used products.

SPEAKER_01 46:17

Interesting. Now, when uh when somebody buys something from the music room, does the music room apply your own warranty for a period of time of any kind?

SPEAKER_02 46:26

Yes, all all of our all of our used products have a 90-day warranty.

SPEAKER_03 46:32

But yeah, and usually with the electronics, if they're gonna go bad, it's gonna go bad that first 90 days, usually.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Yeah, that's called infantile failure.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

Yeah, and and yeah, it's so. I mean, there's a lot of products like hey, if it if it made it that six months or a year, you're probably golden. Like you're you're probably good for quite a long time until you start having cap failures and all the things that are gonna happen 10, 15, 20 years down the road, and with a lot of you know modern components.

SPEAKER_05 47:04

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 47:05

Topic eight. Uh do you see more than this follows up on what you're saying, Peter? Do you see more recent production items needing repairs, say one to a couple of years old, or do you see way older items needing repairs? Morrison, what comes across your desk?

SPEAKER_00 47:22

So we are a warranty servicer for uh you know about 12, 13 different brands. Um, so we do see those come in. Um generally they tend to be um the services tend to be um sometimes it's pilot error, uh, sometimes it's um you know just kind of a fluke. The the one thing I'll say is that um, you know, and this may be a somewhat controversial uh thing to say, but uh I'll say that everything that exists, period, from the time it comes off of a production line. And I don't care whether it is your car, whether it is your stereo system, whatever it is, it is always fighting to get back to the dust from whence it came from the moment that it's created, right? So nothing lasts forever, right? Um, there are devices inside of every piece of electronics that exists on planet Earth, like capacitors, they all have a limited lifespan, right? They all have a 10 to 15 year lifespan. And so we see a ton of stuff come in that's vintage and vintage adjacent. Uh, I would call like Jim's lambs would be like vintage adjacent. Those are like 25, 30 years old. And really, technically, I guess they are vintage. But when I think of vintage, I think uh probably, Peter, you're in the same boat. We think of like 70s Marantzes and like uh Pioneer Essex 1980s and things like that, which by the time that those land, those don't need just like a little kiss to make them right. They need everything. They need a full restore, full restoration, which means every capacitor needs to be replaced, every xener diode needs to be replaced, relays all need to be replaced, um, output transistors need to be pulled and tested. And if they're not close, then they need to be replaced. Um, you know, looking at power supplies and removing any of the carbon comp resistors and replacing those with metal oxide, you know, going through these things from stem to stern, front to back, making sure that it's perfect, of course, removing every little bit of tantalum out of everything and replacing those with modern day equivalents, looking at the signal path in there and making sure that you have the quietest components in the signal path.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

Um, so the answer is way older, those way older things tend to come in more than newer things.

SPEAKER_00 49:59

They tend to need a lot more work. They do come in more often because um by the time they get to us, they're having serious problems. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:08

Peter.

SPEAKER_02 50:11

Yeah, I mean we we we see a lot more of the of the new, but I I the new products that are in that first six months or so tend to see a lot more just like straight up like, oh, this just had a failure. Uh these meters failed, the sockets of the tubes failed. Um whatever. There was a connector that's bad, things like that. Um that's really that's where really other than that, it's primarily shipping and physical damage.

SPEAKER_01 50:42

That's interesting though, that this infantile failure thing is is not something I personally really was that aware of. It totally makes sense. Um, you know, if something works for three months, it's gonna last, it's very likely gonna work for three years, but it might fail in the first three months.

SPEAKER_00 50:56

Yeah, like there's no component out there, like no component out there that has a 100% never fail rate, right? Like if you make a million of these devices, there is going to be a small percentage of those that are just they're gonna fail. And so um, and they are not gonna necessarily fail immediately. And I don't mean I'm talking, I'm not talking about full comp full devices, I'm talking about like individual component devices inside of a unit. So it's just clear.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

Jay, what has been your experience in terms of um components that you take in that um have some failure problem?

SPEAKER_04 51:39

You know, believe it or not, um, I don't really have a lot of that. Don't really have any issues uh for the most I would I would I would say I have probably 90% uh success with buying hi-fi gear, which is extremely high. Uh oftentimes it's more damage during shipping than anything else. It was mishandled, but if it's properly packed with the the original manufacturer's box, and assuming they didn't play soccer with it while they were transporting it. Well, 90% of the things have been fine. They are rough fine, they work fine. If anything, they quit working within the next 90 days, maybe that may happen. But to your point, Peter, once it passes that 90-day mark, I never hear from them again. There's never any issue.

SPEAKER_01 52:27

Uh, topic nine is what's the most common types of failure. So, Jay, let me stay with you. What is describe for us what has been your experience with that other 10%?

SPEAKER_04 52:36

I would say typical failures typically it depends on the component. I mean, usually for a speaker, tweeters. Tweeters blown, right? And believe it or not, you'd be shocked at how many deaf people we have within the hi-fi industry. I've seen systems where I walk into a customer's home and the guy never knew he had a blown tweeter the whole time. Never knew. It it's ridiculous, right? So speakers, number one. Um, and I would say number two, typically it would be probably like an amplifier acting up when you plug it into the wall, like humming sounds, mechanical humming, or buzzing sounds through the tweeter, stuff like that. But after that, preamps pretty solid for me. 99% of the preamps have been solid for me.

SPEAKER_01 53:22

Morrison, list for us, please. Uh, what are the couple of most common failures you see?

SPEAKER_00 53:26

Um, tubes, um, and um, you know, capacitors for sure. Um, you know, mostly because uh the capacitors are really ubiquitous. Every, every every so often we'll see a shorted transistor, but it's pretty rare, man. Um it's a lot of times when something like that happens, it's because something somebody did something that they maybe shouldn't have.

SPEAKER_01 53:56

Okay. Yeah. Peter, what are the most common types of failures you see?

SPEAKER_02 54:01

Um putting on the repair hat connections, just connectors, connections, boards connecting together, things shipping. Um especially is as it things age, you start just getting corrosion issues. See, see the same thing on tubes. The tube socket, the actual socket is the worst part of the entire thing. Um it's all not that the socket's bad, but there just there's a physical connection there. Yeah. Um, you know, as much as capacitors, a lot of the a lot of that is getting so good. The manufacturing is so good on capacitors and resistors. If yeah, it's a well-designed component, it probably isn't that bad. But I see so many times, like this thing doesn't work. You open it up, you go, Oh, this thing came disconnected. You put it back in, or you just reseed all the connections and pow it works again.

SPEAKER_01 54:52

Hey, Jim, what's a failure you've had when you bought something?

SPEAKER_03 54:56

Uh tubes, but tubes are like a tire in a car, you're gonna replace them, so that happens. The sockets, like Peter said, uh, were sometimes, especially like on a 300B, where that where that crimp, you know, you have to go in there and with the screwdriver and pin it a little bit to go and make sure you have a good connection on it. Uh messing with that, cleaning them. Uh, I've done that a lot. Uh, but that's basically it. You you got caps that go out. Uh, you know, I don't know what took uh Morrison so long to fix my lambs. I only had a couple caps go out. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 55:37

Topic 10. I want to get to I want to make sure we have time for the music segment. So this is gonna be our last question. And particularly for Peter and Jay, how do you decide what buying prices you're gonna offer people who are selling? And how do you decide what you're going to ask for that component when you turn around and resell it?

SPEAKER_04 55:57

Jay. I have my own blue book. I keep track of everything I sell, I know exactly what I sold it for last and how long it took me. I keep track of things and I know how long, if it took me too long to sell your item, you're gonna take a hit selling it to me. Period. Because this it does not move fast enough. I had someone trying to trade in a 15-year-old Sonosaber um homage, I think it is called, uh reviewed in 1999 by Michael Framer on stereophile. I told him this is a 25-year-old speaker. You understand this is gonna sit here. I'm probably gonna have to call bulk so they can come and pick it up, right? So I'm not gonna give you very much for it, but I'll do the best I can. And I actually was you fair enough with him, but I'd say my own transactional history, everything that I have done will dictate how much I pay for something, and also looking, taking a peek into the used market and figuring out if there are too many of the same items. When there's too many on the market, you can't pay top dollar for anything because you're competing against everybody else.

SPEAKER_01 56:57

So, for example, you look at Hi-Fi Shark and see what the how many have been for sale recently and if they sold that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_04 57:04

I look at that, and um, and you know, if I have someone ready to buy that maybe I get a phone call, someone's looking for something, and it came to me, I'd be willing to pay more for that item so that I can flip it quickly without holding on to it.

unknown 57:16

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 57:17

Peter, please.

SPEAKER_02 57:18

Makes sense. Data. We're just yeah, what what we've but what we've sold it for, how fast we've sold it, uh, what our pro what do we have a you know, do these sell in five days, ten days, twenty days, fifty days? We're just mining data to say exactly what we've we've got people that are looking for these, and these things go, we can go a little bit higher if we have no idea at all.

SPEAKER_04 57:45

You guys do consignment too, right? On the expensive items. I've been told you guys don't buy the real expensive stuff anymore.

SPEAKER_02 57:52

Uh often, yeah, because we can we can't necessarily hammer out what the price is. So I'm gonna I'm gonna lowball you so much that if you want to sell it at that, because I'm rolling the dice.

SPEAKER_04 58:02

Full full transparency that's has been, you know, pro when they come to me, they have told me that try to go to the music room, and the music room says I'll take we'll take it on consignment, but maybe the customer is like, I don't want to be waiting six months until you sell it, I want to buy something else right now. And so they come to me, and that's when I'm able to strike up deals once I know you have shut them down.

SPEAKER_02 58:23

Yeah, for sure. And then that's and that's what we're we're data driven to just try to keep that keep that moving. Um you know, we've got to beat all the people here.

SPEAKER_01 58:33

Yeah. Morrison, when you have your dealer hat on, how do you decide on pricing what you're gonna buy and what you're gonna sell at?

SPEAKER_00 58:40

You know, um, we all have the same internet, right? So we all have the same availability of seeing, you know, what's out there and and uh what things have sold for, and um, you know, whether it be Hi-Fi Shark or we go on with the Audiogram Blue Book or or uh anything like that. And so um, you know, I certainly sell things on consignment too, you know. Uh I've got a a pair of um very high-end monoblocks that are on our floor right now that are gorgeous and lovely and awesome. And uh, you know, it's not something that I I could uh um you know, it's something that I was willing to position to the marketplace for this client. Um and and he was totally fine with that. Uh, you know, he's just like, yeah, it's great. You can go ahead and field all the phone calls and do all the negotiations, just let me know uh where it ends up. You know, he was totally fine with that. And so um, you know, we've got a couple pieces like that, not a ton. Um, but you know, um we again the market's gonna dictate what the market's gonna dictate. So, and we pay attention to that as much as anybody else.

SPEAKER_01 59:53

On to the music segment. Who has a music recommendation for us tonight?

SPEAKER_03 59:58

All right, Jim. All right, let's start off with a little Charles Tolliver. This is an album from six 1969. Can y'all see it pretty good? He's a he's a trumpeter, and uh this is a fantastic album recorded. It's beautiful, it's beautiful. It's uh uh progressive jazz and highly, highly recommended. Now, I want to give you guys a new album, new old album. This is uh Miles and Quincy Montrose. This is a rhino reissue. This is Mayu's um Mayu's Miles. My daughter's name is Mayu. Uh, this is Miles, uh, one of his last performances before he passed, about two months before he passed. What's unique about this is this is this is almost a one-hour album on a single disc. And usually that's a remedy for sounding horrible, but this sounds fantastic. And I got that at Disney concert hall when we went with uh my friend Don uh and Ron is friends with Don too, and uh we found this there fantastic, fantastic, and then I got one more. I was told to limit it to three. Yes, you were. Uh yes, uh, and these are all ones I've just recently been listening to. Power Power in the slot. This is a van another fantastic album. Uh, this is uh like a funk, little funk, little jazz. Uh once again, sounds fantastic. Sounds fantastic. This is from I believe 1975. And that's what we got.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:00

Okay, Morrison, did you have something? I've I've got a few things. This one's for Jim because I know you're a bit of a jazzer, Jim. I've I I've sold uh Jim several uh great jazz records. This is uh John, this is John Benjamin's Jazz Daredevil. Well, I should have learned how to play piano. So John Benjamin is a comedian. He did put this record up on subpop, and uh he got a really great jazz trio together uh to uh do this uh jazz date at this recording studio in New York and decided that he was going to play piano for this jazz trio, but has never played piano.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:41

So kind of like I've never been on a podcast. Yeah, that's that's a that's a fun one.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:50

Um a couple albums I've been listening to a lot. Uh this is on a German band called uh uh Tunstein the Schaben. Uh this is their second album or second album uh Kinemox for Niemand. Um I bought their box set a few years ago um with their first five albums in it, and uh I really enjoyed this a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:08

They're singing in English?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:09

No, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:11

No, it's all in German.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:12

Oh yeah. Um yeah, most of the music I listen to is not in English.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:18

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

Okay, yeah, yeah. And uh so another one, this is one of my favorites. This is uh Einzlossen in Neubaun, uh Alis Rita Hoffman. This came out in 2007, probably my favorite Einstein and Neubauten record. Uh opens up with a track called Nagorni Karabah, which uh I think is um a really special track, and this is a really special album.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:36

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:37

Yeah, so there you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:39

Okay, thank you. Anyone else? Alrighty. Any final thoughts on our topic about used components, gentlemen? No, all good. It was it was fun. Alrighty. Well, thank you very much. The next episode of the Hi Five Five will be Wednesday, August 26th. Thanks for joining us tonight. Bye bye. See you guys.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:00

Take care, everybody. Thanks, guys.