VOGONS


First post, by Shreddoc

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I've been getting back into retro PC sound devices this year. Quite an expensive time to be starting the hobby - at the top end, certainly! But also many cheaper options which provide a very good experience too.

Being from a small remote country, the purchasing and shipping options are very limited. The original supply was never here, and so the retro open market is tiny. Actual stores and emporiums hardly exist, even online is scarce. It forces one to adapt to the open international market, such as ebay and amazon, for many retro items, despite the prices being a lot higher than people in the UK/US/Germany/etc would pay.

It makes for quite a list, looking at what a buyer like me must pay immediately (e.g. Buy It Now + international shipping) if there is an immediate need. I will attempt to list the main candidates in current approximate $US. The source is simply my non-official estimation of current/recent ebay and other common sources.

(^^above this level, are freaky-priced things I don't want to think about....^^)
250++ MT-32
250+ GUS
210 Aureal Vortex 2 (somewhat corrected below - cheaper cards perhaps 80)
150 SC-55
110 Creative ISA (SBPro2)
60 Creative AWE (Basic 32 or 64)
50 Adlib (remake)
40 Yamaha 719 ISA
25 Basic Creative PCI
20 Yamaha 724 PCI
20 Basic ESS Audiodrive
10 Basic CMI PCI, etc

What do you think? Hope I haven't forgotten anything major, but it's late here so I probably have...

The main things that get my attention in terms of the current prices are the MT-32, and the Aureal Vortex 2, both of which seem to have approximately doubled in asking price over the past year, in this very limited, international open market.

I have obtained most on the list already.... except the top 3. <laughs, cries, laughs, cries, ....> Thank goodness for MUNT, but the Aureal Vortex 2 is a tougher nut to crack, let alone the GUS which is already in probably-too-rare-to-bother-hoping territory.

In conclusion, for hobbyists in many of the world's regions, it would today cost about US$1250+ to obtain the full range of common retro PC sound devices.

Last edited by Shreddoc on 2020-10-07, 22:53. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 1 of 22, by Oetker

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It's a well known fact that eBay buy-it-now prices are often very high, I don't get what your point is?

In fact, some of those don't seem that high. Even on my not-eBay local online marketplace, especially synths are basically the prices you mention. Maybe those sellers based their prices on eBay, but I don't think ~$120 for a good condition SC-55 is out of line, and if you add international shipping your price seems ok.

The worst wishful thinking I've seen is on MCA SoundBlaster cards (rare, but demand is small) and Voodoo cards (not that rare/special but stupid hype).

Reply 2 of 22, by Shreddoc

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Oetker wrote on 2020-10-07, 12:57:

It's a well known fact that eBay buy-it-now prices are often very high, I don't get what your point is?

For the people relevant - "hobbyists in smaller/remoter countries", which together probably numbers in the billion(s) people - things like ebay BIN are literally the only place certain things can be reliably obtained. The other sources which people in bigger countries enjoy for rare retro equipment, can in many places barely exist. My points are to those hobbyists, and collectively is merely a talk about the current state of the open retro market for us.

Indeed, some of the prices are not too bad. SC-55's are obviously more common in supply, compared to MT-32 whose supply is obviously really starting to dry up, based upon the market signs. Likewise with the Aureal Vortex 2, it seems.

Guess if I had a single overarching point, it would be that retro items which are desirable in the US/UK/Germany/a few others, are virtually non-existent everywhere else, and that this is a factor contributing to the increasing supply strain for much old hardware.

Reply 3 of 22, by Boohyaka

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Don't know what country you're from, but maybe take a look at classified ads at neighbors? I was in a kinda similar boat, retrocomputing is pretty much non-existent in Switzerland and didn't want to buy overpriced stuff on eBay, so I started looking at classified ads in bigger neighboring countries, and was able to score many interesting MIDI devices, mostly from musicians but not only. I've purchased several MT-32, SC-55, SC-50, Yamaha MU80 and even an MPU-401 for very good prices. Also computer cards, like a voodoo2 card for pretty cheap, a box full of unidentified ISA soundcards for 10 bucks (some crappy but a few good ones in there), an Audigy 2 ZS for 5 bucks, various gfx cards, a new in box Logitech Pilot mouse for 5 bucks, etc. I just contact them, tell them I'm interested but living abroad and if they would be ok shipping to another country at my expense. I've never had a single refusal. Even with P&P, sometimes even more expensive than the device itself, it was usually way more than worth the effort compared to eBay prices.

Again don't know where you live so maybe that is not a solution, but just thought I'd mention my experience.

Reply 4 of 22, by imi

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I still don't get where the "overpriced ebay" cliche comes from... I've definitely made most of my best deals on ebay, you don't ever look at "buy it now" prices, that is not the actual ebay market those items never get sold.

on the other hand most people on the local classifieds here will look at exactly those buy it now prices on ebay and ask the same cause they follow the same logic as OP and good deals are rare.

Reply 5 of 22, by cyclone3d

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Aureal Vortex 2 for 210???? That is not right. The Diamond MX 300 goes for a stupid amount but the other cards with the vortex 2 chip are way cheaper.

If you look for the oem cards, specifically Dell Turtle Beach cards, you can find au8830 cards for around $20-$25 sometimes.

Currently I am seeing a few non-oem au8830 cards for around $75

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 6 of 22, by Boohyaka

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That is definitely not my experience, also in Europe. I've made most of my awesome deals on classified ads where people have no real idea of the potential artificial eBay prices. I've purchased most of my midi expanders from musicians that had no clue of the interest of such devices for retrogaming, they were selling them under "musical instruments" category.

There are some good deals on eBay but it's hard to find them. And I can't be bothered to bid on eBay items, 9 times out of 10 you'll get sniped. I have about all the hardware I was after mostly from classified ads, I even got spares I could sell for twice the price I paid for them easily, with none of the eBay bidding bullshit.

Checking eBay right now for MT-32: very few offers, ridiculous prices. The cheapest is a 194 dollars device from UK, with 72 dollars shipping (lol). Other offers start at 390 dollars. Yes, those are buy now prices and you could try your luck at bidding and get sniped at the last minute most probably. In the span of 2 months and while probably lucky, I've purchased two MT-32 "old" from classified ads, one for 80 euros, the other for 100 euros, no bullshit bidding and waiting, simple 1 to 1 transactions.

Again I'm not against eBay and have done quite a few purchases on there, but skipping over classified ads thinking the good deals are on eBay would be foolish.

imi wrote on 2020-10-07, 13:45:

I still don't get where the "overpriced ebay" cliche comes from... I've definitely made most of my best deals on ebay, you don't ever look at "buy it now" prices, that is not the actual ebay market those items never get sold.

on the other hand most people on the local classifieds here will look at exactly those buy it now prices on ebay and ask the same cause they follow the same logic as OP and good deals are rare.

Reply 7 of 22, by imi

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well I bought my MT-32 for €50 from a local classifieds yes, but that was a once-in-a-lifetime hit and while yes, those deals do happen on classifieds occasionally, your chances to actually get it are just as slim as those are usually snapped up immediately.
and yes you don't find those on ebay as more people tend to browse and watch ebay for something as rare as a MT-32... so that is kind of a bad example, yes, you probably won't find good deals on incredibly rare items on ebay, as other people wanting it too will outbid you, but same applies here, don't look at buy it now prices, look at sold listings (though even those don't always tell you the whole story, as there are a lot of fraudulent sales in there too)
that doesn't mean you won't find good deals on general ISA sound cards that are more common.

it's really not that hard to get a nice ISA SB, ESS, Yamaha or the like card for under €10 on ebay.

Reply 8 of 22, by cyclone3d

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I got my MT-32 a while ago from somebody that posted a couple for BIN now prices for around $80 US. Those went really fast.

Same type of thing where I got a boxed GUS 2.4 for around $35 as well as some other sound cards and external devices for really great prices.

Deals are still there, it just takes OCD type watching eBay to find them and lighting fast fingers to buy them before they are snatched up.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 9 of 22, by dionb

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I got my MT-32 in exchange for a sealed new-in-box Matrox M3D (PowerVR PCX2). I picked the latter up as part of big load of 'make an offer on this crap in the potatocam photo' stuff in more-or-less-local classifieds I picked up for iirc EUR 50. I wasn't even aware the M3D was in there when I did (and no one else was either, otherwise bidding would have been an issue 😜 )

Deals are still there, it just takes OCD type watching eBay to find them and lighting fast fingers to buy them before they are snatched up.

That. Regardless of platform (eBay, classifieds, elsewhere) there are a lot of good deals available, but for obvious reasons they get picked up fast. He who watches things like a hawk and pounces instantly wins.

Best deals are ones where the seller incorrectly identifies or - more commonly - misspells what he has. Half the world is looking for Voodoo5 cards, less people are looking foor Vodooo5 😉

Reply 10 of 22, by cyclone3d

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Heh... Yep, poorly listed items are great for getting good deals.

I randomly ran across a Voodoo3 3500 without the cable. It was listed as a Philips tv tuner card. Picked it up for 11.09 shipped.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 11 of 22, by imi

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I have found listings like that before... but all the ones I found have also been found by others apparently and either ended up too expensive or were snatched up before I had the chance :p

Reply 12 of 22, by cyclone3d

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Yeah.... a while back there was a BIN listing for a bunch of old CPUs, including a Cyrix 5x86-133. The whole listing was about $100. While I was contemplating getting it, somebody else bought it.

Now I get super nervous every time I see a really good deal on something I am looking for and hope my payment goes through before anybody else can snatch it up.. so much so that I usually have to go back to the listing and read over it more carefully to make sure what I thought I just bought is what I actually bought.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 13 of 22, by Bancho

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I managed to get an Original Adlib, SB Pro 2 and Yamaha Waveforcr PCi card for £40 in a job lot of "Old Cards" and a Sealed Yamaha SW60XG for £30. These were off eBay. Certainly bargains about. Just got to constantly look!

Reply 14 of 22, by pentiumspeed

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Jumped on one of seller's who was selling Elsa video card (high quality S3 video card PCB) and had a look in their stock and found unnamed video card in poor condition but complete compaq 1280/p and a 68 pin HH 3.5" hard drive. So bought these 3 items.

This means searches is missing lot of items that we could find with proper names but the poorly described auctions get missed. How can I deal with this? Even with simple video card PCI missed that.

For example one auction from that 3 items I bought: the title was:
"Video Card PCI, QV2000, 9425-0547, CNT75MXZ2Z cnt75mxz21". In fact it is actually Compaq Qvision 1280/p card in the auction image. No part number or proper description, and QV2000 got missed when I searched Qvision 2000 as QV2000 is incorrect name.

Cheers,

Great Northern aka Canada.

Reply 15 of 22, by Shreddoc

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cyclone3d wrote on 2020-10-07, 13:49:

Aureal Vortex 2 for 210???? That is not right. The Diamond MX 300 goes for a stupid amount but the other cards with the vortex 2 chip are way cheaper.

If you look for the oem cards, specifically Dell Turtle Beach cards, you can find au8830 cards for around $20-$25 sometimes.

Currently I am seeing a few non-oem au8830 cards for around $75

Thanks for the correcting info. There are currently 2 non-Diamond au8830 cards on ebay, for total incl shipping costs of about 80 and 110 respectively. Very scarce though!

Boohyaka wrote on 2020-10-07, 13:38:

Don't know what country you're from, but maybe take a look at classified ads at neighbors? I was in a kinda similar boat, retrocomputing is pretty much non-existent in Switzerland and didn't want to buy overpriced stuff on eBay, so I started looking at classified ads in bigger neighboring countries, and was able to score many interesting MIDI devices, mostly from musicians but not only. I've purchased several MT-32, SC-55, SC-50, Yamaha MU80 and even an MPU-401 for very good prices. Also computer cards, like a voodoo2 card for pretty cheap, a box full of unidentified ISA soundcards for 10 bucks (some crappy but a few good ones in there), an Audigy 2 ZS for 5 bucks, various gfx cards, a new in box Logitech Pilot mouse for 5 bucks, etc. I just contact them, tell them I'm interested but living abroad and if they would be ok shipping to another country at my expense. I've never had a single refusal. Even with P&P, sometimes even more expensive than the device itself, it was usually way more than worth the effort compared to eBay prices.

Again don't know where you live so maybe that is not a solution, but just thought I'd mention my experience.

Tbh Switzerland, located in the center of Europe, one of the hugest marketplaces in the world, wasn't really what I had in mind when I talk about small or remote countries. I am in New Zealand. The resources you have available on your virtual doorstep, sounds like a panaceas of riches to me.

In the 1990's, very very few Roland PC devices (for example) were ever, ever shipped to or sold in this comparatively tiny, remote country. And so, they cannot possibly exist in local classifieds etc, and when they are (once per year? once per multiple years?), they are so rare that the eagerness is astounding. Thus if you want a Roland device in this country at all, then you will probably have to buy it from Japan.

And in countries like mine, that sort of logic applies to all desirable retro PC devices. And I think this is a harbinger of what it's going to be like for every country, in 10 years or so, as the hardware supply gradually dies and dries up.

The trend to engineer new versions of certain things (e.g. GUS, AWE projects here on Vogons) is telling in that way, too. It's the direction of things.

Last edited by Shreddoc on 2020-10-07, 22:48. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 17 of 22, by Shreddoc

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Stiletto wrote on 2020-10-07, 22:47:

This discussion might go better in the Collecting Rants thread...

I am sorry if it is in the wrong place, I am still becoming familiar with the forum layout here.

Reply 18 of 22, by Doornkaat

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To be honest I don't get the idea of this list. If you're looking to buy something right now on ebay you can look up the prices yourself. In this case the price is always what the cheapest seller wants. Just do an ebay search, limit to BIN and sort by price. If the item isn't avaliable right now you can't buy it anyway. No need for a list, right? Or am I completely missing the point here?
The only thing such a list does in my opinion is solidify ridiculous BIN prices because newbies read about the prices and think they're normal.

On the other hand if you went through the trouble of following auctions of those items and making an updated average auction price list I'd say you might be helping others out. With a list like this people could compare current BIN prices to international auction prices and determine wether a BIN price is justified at all.

I'm still not a fan of open price discussions because in my opinion they beget greed and contribute to increasing prices by generating a fear of missing out. But in this specific case having an updated list of auction prices of popular retro computing items may actually help out people who simply have to buy internationally.

Reply 19 of 22, by Shreddoc

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Doornkaat wrote on 2020-10-08, 02:18:

To be honest I don't get the idea of this list. If you're looking to buy something right now on ebay you can look up the prices yourself. In this case the price is always what the cheapest seller wants. Just do an ebay search, limit to BIN and sort by price. If the item isn't avaliable right now you can't buy it anyway. No need for a list, right? Or am I completely missing the point here?

It's just a casual, temporary discussion. Not really intended to be a "master list" with "some great, wise point".

The open market prices are not some great contrived ripoff imo, they are a general reflection of real supply and demand. If anything, they are symptomatic of the way retro hardware is gradually dying out and become rarer, and I don't believe that talking about it changes that, or increases prices in any meaningful way.

For example, if somebody could recreate the GUS for $100 cost, then they would - but experience here on the forums shows the reality to cost much more.

Another example, CRT's will be almost non-existent within a few decades - as in, cannot be obtained for any price, with the remainder carefully hoarded and maintained by hardcore enthusiasts, far moreso than even today.

The same way that the thinnest capillaries of a river network dry up first, here in thin New Zealand I am seeing my small tributaries of retro supply dry up. If anything, it's a reminder (to the rest of you in more supplied countries) to not wait too long to fulfil your retro dreams.