In reply to post #1
Subject: When is the best time to sell it?
Would the value increase with time? Is there a better time in the year to sell (summer vs Christmas)? What would you pay for a NIB sealed Karma? How should I market it? What would be the profile of a buyer?
that's about what i expected. but without me it would have gone for 270
not cheap but hey these things were $350 new. anyway i decided to wait for a good used one since i want to fix it up with a new battery and CF card. a NIB specimen.. well i'd probably never open it and what fun is that.
No. I am not the vendor. For several years, I've been on the buying side of auctions.
I think the buyer's side is the easier side of an auction. Sellers are exposed to risk: what to sell; when to sell; starting bid; length of time of the auction; presentation of the item...and so on.
Buyers also have an element of risk. But they have the upper hand in the transaction. I'm sure the buyer of that NIB Sealed Rio Karma is happy about his/her purchase. Something special.
Waiting for a good used Rio Karma is a good choice too. You can replace the battery with a better, more powerful battery.
You can replace the hard drive with a compact flash card and adapter. Have a look at NewEgg's flash cards. 32gb compact flash cards run about $55. Eventually, 64gb cards will be affordable. Imagine 60gb of songs on your Karma.
You may want to buy a beat up Karma to start with. After you have learned from your mistakes, etc. you can take a good used Karma and customize it for youself. That would be an achievement to be proud of.
picked up a "not tested" karma/dock on ebay for cheap, works just fine minus the wheel. all it needed was a charge. but neither of my units have a functional wheel
it's not a show stopper, but i recall navi being much more efficient/pleasant using the wheel. i ordered 1 new mainboard w/wheel from firehouse7777, for the original unit i bought new (wheel missing), and i'm going to try to repair the beater i picked up on ebay using loctite as recommended by James Thompson in his guide (thanks dude). found the plastic formulation at a local Ace hardware store.
last week i ordered some PA-CF18H adapters from "SINTECH PC ADAPTER WORLD" (honk kong) as recommended in the forum, will pair those with modern 32gb CF cards. decided against the 64 or 128gb Kingflash IDE SSD's as too expensive and unnecessary.
also picked up some new batteries on ebay to apply while i have the players gutted. my soldering experience is limited, but this application (2 wires) should be simple. i'll make it work.
This post was edited 2 times, last on 2011-05-30, 03:41 by dapreview.