I buy way too much gear -- both new and used, lol. I've had mostly excellent used-buy experiences, and that includes a couple of Koetsu Platinum cartridges. You do have to be a bit careful with used AQ cables, in that you must verify them as genuine (or trust the sellers's ability to do same). Most of the Chinese knock-offs look pretty poor, though.
And I think I've still noticed a bit of break-in with new AQ DBS cables. It's not drastic, and maybe there's a strong element of personal "break-in" towards getting used to a new sonic signature, but I've got a WEL Signature LP phono and Fire XLR cables that I like better now than when they were brand new. In fact, I slightly preferred my old Wild LP to the new WEL LP for a while. Same thing happened with a brand new Bob's Devices Sky 40 SUT vs. an old 1131 -- now the Sky 40 totally surpasses it, but at first is was a bit dynamically restricted.
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