Imagine if you buy some really expensive and rare hardware (e.g. fairchild 666) expecting it will mantain or encrease its price along the time. Then some audio company releases the most advanced tone software when you can have all the flavours of hardwares from all the eras with hifi oversampling and convolution (no big CPU strikes also; easy to crack and available at the sister site). Jack Joseph Puig becomes crazy, sell all his gear into prostitutes and makes a Mix With The Masters workshop for in the box mixing using this software (high merchand going on, he will be driving rolls royces alongside Michael Brauer in the inicial take). After that you dear 666 will be sold to a museum with less value than before, but at least you will be proud the be part of the audio history™

 

Have you considered the fact that the life of electronic instruments also depends on the reliability of the stability of the components over time? And on maintenance? In twenty years, in 2040, meaning between 20 and 65 years after the release of these instruments, will there still be technicians capable of maintaining or even repairing instruments from 1975 or 2020? Theoretically yes, on the paper... but in practice? And will there still be compatible electronic components? To this last question we can obviously answer yes for the common components, but what about the specific components made specifically for this or that synth? (remember simply the case of the Yamaha CS-series)... and at what price and in what availability knowing that we will live in an era where almost everything that comes out will certainly be made of electronic products designed not to be repaired. Older components, both passive and active, will probably be unaffordable at the unit because they have become a very marginal market. It is likely that most of the things we buy in 2040 will be based on (embedded) computing and therefore the market for old analog electronics will have become a very small minority... and unaffordable. Will the instrument you buy today still be saleable second hand in 2040? The world has become so politically and economically unstable that we don't even know what the value of the dollar will be compared to the average person's salary in twenty years. A Moog or a DSI/CSI may be so expensive (compared to a salary) that it may be unsellable except to a hyper-fortunate person (then rare), but it may also be worth nothing at all because the manufacture of some of its components will have suffered extinction due to war or an economic and industrial crash.


Unlike the previous 50 years, which were happy years for analog electronics, we now live in a time when we have no idea what the world will be like in 20 years. And the dollar compared to the average wage will not have the same value at all, either upwards... or downwards.


So in my opinion, we should not ask ourselves the question "What can I buy today that will be resellable at the same price or even with an added value in twenty years". It is better to ask the question "What could I buy today that is reliable enough in time to be sure that it will still work perfectly in twenty years" without any consideration on a hypothetical resale.

My two cents...

 

Last edited: Nov 1, 2022