What was the best deal you got on second hand gear and how much did you save on new. I can’t afford new so I’m always scouring for used stuff.
By “how much did you save on new”, do you mean cost of the item when it had been new, and if that was many years earlier does that mean corrected for inflation? Or do you mean whatever is/was the manufacturer’ current new cost of the same item at the time of the purchase if they still made it at that time? Or if they don’t make the identical item but something equivalent, the cost of the current equivalent as at the time of the purchase (e.g someone bought Mk1, and manufacturer was up to Mk 4)?
Hmmm rarely buy second hand but I picked up a Luxman earth loopless power strip a while back. It was after being discontinued and at auction so it cost as much as new. But I really wanted to top off the Luxman system with it.
Literally yesterday ordered a 2nd-hand 5m pair of Atlas Mavros Grun speaker cable for my very recently acquired NAP 300DR as I feel that my 2m run of Chord Epic Reference cable isn’t the best match.
Managed to score it for about 1/3rd of the retail price. Still was a lot of money but hopefully a smart buy.
Plus it will go with my old Atlas Mavros RCA cable that I use between my DAC and pre.
Fingers crossed it brings a big improvement.
I recently bought the fifth pair of Linn Kans that have been in my system over the years, the first pair cost me £400 around 35 years ago, the most recent pair cost exactly £400
I guess this is a considerable saving in real terms, taking inflation into account but one of the appeals of my used kit, especially Naim, is that trading pieces in and out generally costs little to nothing
In comparison to the Kans, a recently acquired CDS2 with CDSPS cost around 1/3 of the amount the first owner would have paid
Both bargains in my view
If you include ex-dem in second-hand bargains then ATC SCM40s and 250DR, a true second-hand bargain would be a Quadraspire rack.
If you go back many decades I guess my LP12 bought second-hand is still going strong and about to be upgraded to around mid-spec level for significantly less than buying a new one.
I once bought 8 Naim Chips on ebay for £9.99 including delivery.
If the seller had used the word Naim in the description I might have been outbid!
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LP12 with Stiletto/ Keel/ Radikal/ Ekos/ Kleos/ Skorpion/ T-Kable.
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Neat MF9 speakers, to replace my, at the time, MF7s.
They’d been built to order by Neat, for a customer who wanted them as a stopgap whilst his Revel floor standers were being repaired under warranty.
Fortunately for me, on their return, he decided he preferred the Revels, so step in Dave … six weeks old, in Piano Black Gloss finish, at less than half list price, and a hire van day trip to deepest Gloucestershire and back … bargain! 
FWIW just recently picked up a pair of Kudos Titan 606’s in gloss black. Not really the colour I’d normally choose but, at half the price of new and a year’s manufacturers warranty to go I figured the compromise was worth it.
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Almost all my present system - !!!
The Kore and Lingo for my Linn LP12.
In Naim, my NAC82, my 2nd HiCap, my CDX2 and my XPS2.
My Kudos X3’s.
All of these were pre-loved from well know dealers in Leicestershire and in St Albans.
Which was the best ‘bargain’…? I couldn’t say.
Which was the item I was most delighted by…? Easy, my 82.
My last major purchase was a pair of ex demo Sonus Faber Olympica Nova 3s. Less than a year old not even run in. List price £11,800, I paid £9k. A great deal and they sound as good as they look!
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One month old Kudos Titan 505 for half new retail price.
G
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Just over a year ago; a NAT 05 for £349 
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A year old Morgana XLR for my 250, one year old, like new and just over half price … and sounding wonderful
Mark
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Not sure how you are defining a bargain, or pre owned. Some seem to have ex demo as pre owned? Bargain for me is if I have to sell, will I get more than I paid for it. So in that vein then a shabby looking, unused for a while, set of 140 and 62 I took a chance on. They turned out to work as well as my existing Class A serviced set. A little attention from me and they now both look and sound the same. I’d have to look at the serial numbers to tell the difference.
Other than that I’ve found all the pre owned kit I’ve bought something of a bargain compared to cost of new, even after the service costs are added in.
Best ex demo buys have been speakers. The D9.2’s at the cost of 7.2’s and a set of fyne audio F302’s new unused at 265 pounds .
If I was to be unkind the best bargain from Naim was the 552DR which with a dealer discount saved me 9k compared to the price list issued two weeks later. I just wish I’d ordered the 500DR at the same time. 
My whole Naim system is secondhand - so, choose any one.
However I did get lucky with an auction bid on a NAT05 (Less than Debs paid for hers).
But in the biggest-bang-per-buck bargain stakes there’s only one…… the nDAC!
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Neat XL10s. List £29K in Velvet Cloud finish, bought in the US for $9000 ex-dem. The market over here isn’t huge for British speakers and my timing was perfect (forgive the pun).
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I bought a pair of Neat Xplorers less than half price during lockdown then sold them for more than £1k profit, can’t complain about that.
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Ok, no preferred approach it seems…
I’ve been happily buying secondhand since bought within the past decade when I twigged the greater buying power, and with highly reliable product. The only things not secondhand that I’ve bought in that time has been cartridges & CD players (subject to mechanical wear), and DACs (fast developing digital world).
My current system was all bought within the past decade (significantly boosted by an inheritance). The sum of it’s recommended retail prices today is something like 2.7x the inflation corrected prices I paid.
My most recent acquisition, 5 months ago, was mint condition my speakers at about 1/6th of the then new price of their current incarnation.