Bad day on FeePay

[Old Guy]

A Acoustician Altec knockoff being sold as a real Altec- and "rare".

Pair of ceramic 288's and MantaRays for $3000.

A pair of Gauss 2 inch at $1000.

PT Barnum is alive and well.

[bowtie427ss]

All good things generally must come to an end, kind of sad in some ways to see ebay hasten its own extinction with it's new and extensive policy changes.

I was disappointed to see the acoustician knock off being offered by that seller, i would have generally referred to him as a straight shooter and more knowledgeable. I feel sorry for the novice that loosens or removes the phragm in that one, they have no guide/locating pins and the phragms have to be installed/alligned the old fashioned way with a signal generator and experience.

I don't really know why, but Gauss compression drivers have been bringing very good money for a while now.

Overall, the number of listings seems to be down. The way i filter my "altec" search should usually return between 600-800 hits this time of year, it's currently returning 424.

Just my mostly irrelevant .02 y'all understand................

[Old Guy]

I want to post that, to the seller's credit- he changed the auction after I emailed him. there appear to still be a few good people on there...I was pleased to see the correction. He even emailed thanking me- this has been totally the opposite of my normal Ebay experience.

I must say at this point I would have no qualms about buying from him.

[bowtie427ss]

That's good to hear OG, i'm not sure if i've bought from him in the past, he may have bought a Pathe projector from me many moons ago. At any rate, he's been selling Altec gear for several years on ebay and has always seemed to represent well and price realistically.

Just out of curiosity, are those drivers worthy of putting phragms in?

I have what appear to be some relatively early ones with Waldom badges stuck over the Acoustic Technologies badge, phragms are busted.

[Old Guy]

The Alnico ones are usable.

They made decent stage wedges using them with Radian phragms.

The problem is, the value of the drivers is less than the cost of diaphragms.

If you need a dirt cheap stage monitor driver, look at the selenium 220. It ain't an Altec, but it is dirt cheap- 40 bucks from Martin Pro Sound in Cleveburg if you sign up as a dealer. An honest 80 watts from 1500 up, will work down to about 1K de-rated.
And it sounds better than most cheap JBL and EV stuff.

Like it or not- speakers are becoming commodities. Most countries in the world are at least 1960's technology. And there will be much more stuff that's usable coming from all over the world.
Then of course there is always the BMS driver- brand new for about the cost of a diapragm for those Acousticians.

We had a policy of replacing phragms on schedule whether bad or not- so I always had a supply of spares. In a situation like that, certainly I would fix 'em. But to pay a hundred each- I don't think so.

[gamalot]

"All good things generally must come to an end, kind of sad in some ways to see ebay hasten its own extinction with it's new and extensive policy changes".

I gave up on ebay months ago as it has become nothing more then an indoor flea market.

I suppose there are still some great deals to be had as long as you are not the seller expecting a good price for your valuable gear.

My buying experiences have steadily gone down hill and most, except what is bought from respected sellers, is junk.

Since closing my account with Ebay I have been bombarded by them to get back in to it. Seems every day I get some other announcement from them about how great they are.

Gary

[bowtie427ss]

Is it just the stuff I'm looking for going extinct, or has the number of items for sale dropped?
--------------------

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm definitely seeing lower numbers of items and bids in the circles i travel.

Traditionally this is the "hot" season for most things related to audio, and for the numbers to remain equal to summertime numbers would be a scary enough scenario, but many things seem to be at an all time low right now.

IMO, this trend is largely the result of a combination of the current economic status of the shopping public and the increasing presence of less than honest activity in the ebay community.

It's my WAG that recent policy changes implemented by the "IT geniuses" at ebay will only hasten the decline................ strictly my opinion tho.

If you follow the nasdaq at all, then you're aware that ebay's earnings have steadily slipped over the past year while Amazon has enjoyed healthy growth in the same depressed marketplace.

Meg saw this coming and i'll wager it has EVERYTHING to do with her jumping ship when she did..................... just my .02

[gamalot]

All I know for sure is that I have lots of nice stuff to sell and none of it is "Flea Market".

Ebay deserves their own fate as I am still able to scalp sellers for real cheap under one of my ten different Ebay IDs but I sure won't be offering any of my nice stuff on that chopping block!

Ebay hates guns and all gun related items but thats only because they shoot their own feet off.

I'll be here alot longer then they will!

Gary

[Todd W. White]

Is it just the stuff I'm looking for going extinct, or has the number of items for sale dropped?

[Sounder]

Todd,
I believe that the number of offerings of "quality" hi fi items, in general, is less than HALF of what it was a year ago. I routinely search for Altec Models 19, 15 and 14 along with Klipschorns (just for fun, not that I would buy one). The offering of all of these is getting pretty sparse, prices are up and quality is questionable. I wonder if we have finally exhausted all the good stuff OR if it's the economy, or both. I dunno, but I hope it changes............sigh

John