Whether is CIEMs or Universals once you use it, definitely you are not going to gain profit by selling them no matter how good is the condition or the sound quality. Nobody want to use second hand IEMs or CIEMs,
I
never at any point claimed you might have a chance to profit from it - what I'm saying is that buying up several CIEMs is going to cost a lot of money due to the much lower resale value for each unit. A used universal for example can be sold for, say, 75% of its acquisition cost. For each CIEM, let's use a few ballpark figures to illustrate my point:
Ear impressions + shipping : $85
CIEM MSRP : $500
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Total : $585
Now, when you sell it, you don't base your computation on $585 - you base it on $500.
CIEM MSRP : $500
(Subtract) Reshelling fee : $150
(Subtract) Depreciation : $100
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Estimated resale value : $250
Estimated acquisition cost to buyer (why the reshelling fee is subtracted above) : Estimated resale value + Reshelling fee = $400, + shipping costs where applicable
Loss per unit: $335, multiplied by how many $500 CIEMs were tried and sold. To the buyer, they're still effectively paying for 80% of MSRP, assuming you can sell it at that estimated resale value.
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Now compare that to a universal IEM worth $500; worst case scenario, you tried all the included tips:
uIEM MSRP : $500
(subtract) used tips, full set : $40
(subtract) depreciation : $100
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Estimated resale value: $360
Total loss per uIEM: $140
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See my point now?
In my opinion, the only way to truly know how good that IEMs or CIEMs sound, is to try them all, but if you try them in a universal version or demo set, it won't sound exactly like the custom version.
By reading others head fi reviews on CIEMs does not guarantee it will sound the way that you have hope for even thought his opinion and yours are the same.
No choice, you have spend time and $$$$ to know exactly how good and how bad it is.
I made the same point in my previous post about the "universal" fit demo units, but my main point was that the plan to try out several CIEMs and then selling them at higher losses due to reshelling costs to the buyer can ultimately result in total losses that probably would potentially be enough to buy a CIEM, depending on how many you go through. I'm just trying to keep you from spending too much money, especially when starting out with a strategy like that. People joke around with "sorry about your wallet" and the context is usually light ribbing but still in a way goading people to just blow money. That's necessary for a hobby but doesn't mean you swipe your card like a machine gun spits out bullets.