But consider also the (IMO irrational) devaluing of 'used' items in the USA. I have a great sounding set of older high end floor speakers I pulled for free from a dumpster... one subwoofer had a small tear in it, and I was able to glue that up with no apparent sound quality degradation, and then later replace the entire sub when one came up cheap on eBay.

I often see fairly high quality floor speakers for near free at thrift stores, etc.

To be fair, I am talking about things that were probably $1-2k new, and I don't feel that I could personally tell the difference from that and something $10k new. Especially with the real world high noise floor- vehicles outside, pets, kids, etc.