I saw this giant Soundcraft mixer on Craigslist. Out of curiosity, wondered what they sell for. Well not much. This one is a Series 5 and appears to have 3 power supplies. That's what's pictured. Not sure if all 3 are needed, but if so, that's a lot of amp draw. I searched online for info about the Series 5 and found one for sale for $4000 and one for sale for $2000. Both local pick up only. Which is beyond acceptable. As in the case with the one in the Craigslist ad, they pulled it out of a church that upgraded. It was a salvage even though the Church said it was all working. So this isn't being sold by some guy downsizing his studio. And the current sellers can't be expected to figure out how to ship something like this. Its a found artifact.
Which leads to the kink in the hose regarding supply and demand. When you force demand for something like an old analog mixer to within a radius of its location, most likely if you're not within a semi major city, the demand will drop to zero. With a Z.
And in the case of the Sound City documentary, it took Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters to get the famous Neve mixing board out of the studio and that one was 100% worth saving.
So as demand approaches zero, price will also go down. Way down. I don't expect older analog mixers or even older semi digital mixers to get down to the $100-200 range. Parts alone might make it worth it. But if it doesn't sell in the first 30 days, chances it won't ever sell and the first $500 takes it. Watch for the return of the low rent project studio to come back but now with giant consoles and not little Mackies and Behringers.
There will always be a romance about them and some practical applications for recording bands, drum kits, live sound etc. But yes, as the supply and demand problems leans in that direction, prices would theoretically go down.
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