Is Reverb.com Is The Reason Why We Can No Longer Buy Many Boss Pedals For Cheap Anymore?

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Ptak
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Is Reverb.com Is The Reason Why We Can No Longer Buy Many Boss Pedals For Cheap Anymore?

Post by Ptak » Mon Oct 18, 2021 4:46 am

Do you guys use reverb.com? I personally never have and stick to local ads or ebay but I've realized that the inflated pedal market most likely is the result of reverb. Since their launch they have tracked sales data and provide their "price guide" chart. With their gain of popularity, the price guide definitely makes for more savvy sellers resulting in price hikes.

Rarity has always inflated price in the past but there were always large fluctuations of price due to low available sales data. Am I wrong to blame reverb solely or are there other factors I have missed?

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Re: Is Reverb.com Is The Reason Why We Can No Longer Buy Many Boss Pedals For Cheap Anymore?

Post by Pepe » Mon Oct 18, 2021 5:24 am

Reverb is indeed one of the reasons why prices have skyrocketed lately. Years ago when Reverb wasn't relevant, you have had trouble to define a standard price of a pedal. All those eBay auctions have been different in the final price so you took a price in the middle of those results if you had something for sale in online ads in good but not new state. Now if you look up any pedal on the internet you get this (or at least I do):

Screenshot boss fz-2.png
Screenshot boss fz-2.png (16.04 KiB) Viewed 6928 times

First result. You cannot overlook it and the price tag is also there. So a BOSS FZ-2 cannot cost less than 246 €, although you might have considered selling it for 120 €. A simple Google search destroys every good price these days. It's a curse for buyers, but a blessing for sellers. I have used Reverb for sales lately and I have never sold my stuff more quickly than through this platform. I didn't ask for those high prices, though.
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Re: Is Reverb.com Is The Reason Why We Can No Longer Buy Many Boss Pedals For Cheap Anymore?

Post by Old_Iron » Mon Oct 18, 2021 3:56 pm

Reverb to me is only to laugh about the absurd prices.

Just put "Boss" in the search box and set the search as "Price high to low".

It's amazing how people can be nuts about common pedal prices (not really the rare ones).

I see Reverb as an "upper class shopping mall", where rich people (Americans) goes to buy luxury and brand stuff.

The best way to buy vintage Boss pedals is direct from Japan, if you have a good Japanese ebay seller, or even a friend there, he will look for good prices at local e-commerce, to buy direct from users and not from stores.

Beware Japanese sellers on ebay that takes adds from local e-commerce and offers it on ebay for double the price, it's a strong "new" trend, you can see the same pedals that are advertised by different sellers, if you fall for that and buy, then he will buy the pedal and ship it to you, earning big money over you.

Has been a while since the last time I checked Reverb, but is funny, kinda like to watch chimps. :lol:

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Re: Is Reverb.com Is The Reason Why We Can No Longer Buy Many Boss Pedals For Cheap Anymore?

Post by Ptak » Tue Oct 19, 2021 9:01 pm

Exactly Pepe... On top of the sales data since reverb gained popularity their overpriced pedals seem to get top place on search engines. If you're someone that has no clue of value and look up your pedal you likely think you have gold sadly.

Old_Iron I'm with you. It seems aside from local ads, any pedals I've purchased have come from Japan on ebay. I just bought an EH-2 for $75 CDN. I've had it in an ebay search for over a year plus reviewed recent ebay and reverb data and this is close to as low as they sell for shipped now. It's a very unpopular pedal and I used to be able buy CIB for around $35-45.

Very glad I kept most of my Boss pedals... I used to buy a few a month now maybe one or two a year!

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Re: Is Reverb.com Is The Reason Why We Can No Longer Buy Many Boss Pedals For Cheap Anymore?

Post by Old_Iron » Tue Oct 19, 2021 10:44 pm

Ptak wrote:
Tue Oct 19, 2021 9:01 pm
Old_Iron I'm with you. It seems aside from local ads, any pedals I've purchased have come from Japan on ebay. I just bought an EH-2 for $75 CDN. I've had it in an ebay search for over a year plus reviewed recent ebay and reverb data and this is close to as low as they sell for shipped now. It's a very unpopular pedal and I used to be able buy CIB for around $35-45.
Ptak, since you acquired an EH-2, a pedal that I like very much, let me tell you the way I use it, as a suggestion.

Like many guitar players, I had trouble with compressor/sustainers at the beginning, too noisy and a bit of a "muffled" kind of sound.

Then one day I read that a compressor/sustainer is not a noisy pedal "per se", it only amplifies the noise that is "imputed" to it.

As you know, the sustainer amplifies the note when it starts to die out, to create the effect of sustain, and that's when it also amplifies the signal noise floor.

The solution, a noise supressor NS-2 before it, the signal will arrive at the compressor/sustainer clean of noise.

What about the "muffled" sound? That's when the EH-2 comes to the show.

I explained all backwards here, but you got the idea.

Here is a pic to illustrate it and for you to see how I set them, best result playing clean with a single coil pickup guitar, like a strat or a tele.

You will have a beautiful, sparkly, clean and sustained sound, full of overtones.

Image

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Re: Is Reverb.com Is The Reason Why We Can No Longer Buy Many Boss Pedals For Cheap Anymore?

Post by sclitheroe » Wed Oct 20, 2021 12:08 am

To play devil's advocate:

It's Efficient Market Theory come home to roost on your pedalboard :D

Reverb didn't make prices go up - its that before markets like Reverb and Ebay, with their global reach, the market for pedals operated with imperfect information about their value - it was a buyers market because you weren't competing with a global buying base, and your sellers didn't know about those buyers and what they were willing to pay either.

Complaining that they are more expensive now is tantamount to complaining that you can't deprive a seller of the true value of the good anymore :D

--------

What would be interesting, would be to have some insight into how many transactions Reverb handles - are those $300 FRV-1's really moving, or is there some fixed quantity of FRV-1's that just sits out there on the market at that price? Or even, is there some quantity of FRV-1's that just endlessly cycles in and out of the market in/around market value.

In 2021 year to date, there were 240 FRV-1's sold used on Reverb, by the way. There are 29 FRV-1's on Reverb for sale right now. Not sure what to make of that, except to say, that's not very many.

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Re: Is Reverb.com Is The Reason Why We Can No Longer Buy Many Boss Pedals For Cheap Anymore?

Post by Ptak » Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:31 pm

Old_Iron wrote:
Tue Oct 19, 2021 10:44 pm
Ptak wrote:
Tue Oct 19, 2021 9:01 pm
Old_Iron I'm with you. It seems aside from local ads, any pedals I've purchased have come from Japan on ebay. I just bought an EH-2 for $75 CDN. I've had it in an ebay search for over a year plus reviewed recent ebay and reverb data and this is close to as low as they sell for shipped now. It's a very unpopular pedal and I used to be able buy CIB for around $35-45.
Ptak, since you acquired an EH-2, a pedal that I like very much, let me tell you the way I use it, as a suggestion.

Like many guitar players, I had trouble with compressor/sustainers at the beginning, too noisy and a bit of a "muffled" kind of sound.

Then one day I read that a compressor/sustainer is not a noisy pedal "per se", it only amplifies the noise that is "imputed" to it.

As you know, the sustainer amplifies the note when it starts to die out, to create the effect of sustain, and that's when it also amplifies the signal noise floor.

The solution, a noise supressor NS-2 before it, the signal will arrive at the compressor/sustainer clean of noise.

What about the "muffled" sound? That's when the EH-2 comes to the show.

I explained all backwards here, but you got the idea.

Here is a pic to illustrate it and for you to see how I set them, best result playing clean with a single coil pickup guitar, like a strat or a tele.

You will have a beautiful, sparkly, clean and sustained sound, full of overtones.

Image
That's a really nice way to cancel out noise. I'm going to try that as it seems super effective but it wasn't why I purchased. I've owned the EH-2 in the past but with different gear. I saw posts recently of people saying the pedal was good for metal and for removing ice pick highs. My amp runs icy and i play rock/metal so I had to try this pedal out again. I'm going to run it at nearly identical settings as you but through my fx loop.

This youtube video really shows the usefulness of the EH-2 and how to properly use it. https://youtu.be/zhmGvfNs8mw Excited to try it with my new gear. I also have repurchased a LM-2 as well.

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Re: Is Reverb.com Is The Reason Why We Can No Longer Buy Many Boss Pedals For Cheap Anymore?

Post by Pepe » Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:39 pm

Ptak wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:31 pm
[...] I also have repurchased a LM-2 as well.
Good man! 8-)
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Re: Is Reverb.com Is The Reason Why We Can No Longer Buy Many Boss Pedals For Cheap Anymore?

Post by Old_Iron » Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:51 pm

Ptak wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:31 pm

That's a really nice way to cancel out noise. I'm going to try that as it seems super effective but it wasn't why I purchased. I've owned the EH-2 in the past but with different gear. I saw posts recently of people saying the pedal was good for metal and for removing ice pick highs. My amp runs icy and i play rock/metal so I had to try this pedal out again. I'm going to run it at nearly identical settings as you but through my fx loop.

This youtube video really shows the usefulness of the EH-2 and how to properly use it. https://youtu.be/zhmGvfNs8mw Excited to try it with my new gear. I also have repurchased a LM-2 as well.
Nice video, thanks, very instructive.

Yeah, EH-2 is like the PQ-4, you need to know how to use it in order to appreciate them.

I also like the LM-2 very much, I would even prefer it over the CS-3 if it had a sustainer in it.

Funny that I never got a good tone with the EH-2 playing metal with a humbucker guitar, will try it again to see if I can do it right.

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Re: Is Reverb.com Is The Reason Why We Can No Longer Buy Many Boss Pedals For Cheap Anymore?

Post by Ptak » Thu Oct 21, 2021 3:34 am

Pepe wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:39 pm
Ptak wrote:
Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:31 pm
[...] I also have repurchased a LM-2 as well.
Good man! 8-)
I knew Pepe would like that! :D I bought it off a guy who was semi living out of his van for $50. He took the backplate off because he wanted a super light pedalboard apparently but threw it away or lost it i guess, I don't know... I have a spare backplate at least. Anyway, Pepe, he loves this pedal as much as you. Magic in a box. Said he really didn't want to sell it because it was so good. He assured me he'd replace it once he got back on his feet. I bought it a few months ago but I've only been able to play unplugged since that purchase. I kind of forget the reason I bought it. I think I saw something that it can make your palm mutes like crunchier sounding or something? Literally no clue why I bought it anymore :lol: I definitely need a full limiter tutorial/youtube deep dive to remember why I wanted one so bad.


Guys in vans are better than reverb.com imo would recommend...
Last edited by Ptak on Thu Oct 21, 2021 3:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

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