The lucky few who have heard the audio from Apple’s new HomePod say it’s spectacular. Does it sound as good as the Hi-Fi stereo boombox Apple made for the iPod?
One way to find out is to buy one currently on eBay – for $2,999.99.
Put down your credit for a moment and understand that collecting vintage tech is very much a seller’s game. Apple has a very loyal brand community and a culture of collectors who will devote life savings and decorate their homes with all things Apple.
There’s no limit to what the owner of a particular Apple item can ask.
Consider that a ratty pair of Birkenstock sandals that once belonged to the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs sold at auction last year for an undetermined amount. Bidding began at $850.
Just this week, a pair of Apple tennis shoes from the 1990s, a prototype pair when the company considered going into the shoe business, was presented as part of an auction catalog. The shoes are expected to fetch as much as $30,000 at the sale on June 11.
But that’s a prototype and a completely differently subculture of vintage tech and probably a hobby that would make your financial advisor frown.
Eve prices on legitimately valuable items change all the time. The rare Apple 1, the very first computer made by Jobs and his other co-founder, Steve Wozniak, sometimes flirts with the $900,000 mark and sometimes comes in at less than $200,000.
The seller of the iPod boombox, theappleipodpay, bills it as “AMAZING RARE” because it is still in the box and factory sealed. Boxed and sealed items, especially, iPods and iPhones do fetch higher prices, but these tend to be all over the map as well.
Never-before-opened Apple items seem to be the specialty of this seller. Last year, theappleipodbay listed three first generation iPod Classics inbox and factory wrapped for $50,000. They are no longer on the seller’s eBay store page, but there are plenty of other sealed Apple products, including old iPods, selling for a few thousand dollars.
No one is watching the iPod Hi-Fi listed at a penny shy of 3K and the pictures on the page appear to be from the internet. The seller has an 88.9 percent positive feedback
Scroll down that page and one with the same claim, boxed and factory wrapped, has a “Buy it Now” price of only $500. There are 27 watching this item and this seller, garmont2222211, has a 100 percent positive feedback rating.
That may even be considered outrageous but if you have to have it, $500 seems thrifty. If you your Apple item has to be virginal, you’re at the mercy of a more ruthless kind of seller.
If you just want to check out the sound quality, there are used ones online for a couple hundred bucks or less.
Photo: Teófilo Ruiz Suárez/Flickr CC
Single-speaker audio has probably come a long way since the iPod Hi-Fi Boombox and so it probably wouldn’t be much competition for Apple’s upcoming HomePod.
PCmag.com in 2006 was impressed with the sound quality “capable of powering a serious party”, but still no match for high-end, floor-standing speakers.
The iPod Hi-Fi had other problems. The price, $349, was more expensive than other dock-speaker devices on the market. Not all iPod models were compatible and an adapter had to be used to charge newer iPods. It also lacked an AM/FM radio. You remember those.
David Pierini is a former newspaper writer and long-time photographer. Considered a luddite by most of his friends, they did not believe him when he broke the news that he would be writing for a technology website. He is fascinated by human nature and would love to cultivate stories about the people driving the tech bus. Reach out to him at [email protected].
4 responses to “For Apple collectors, pricing is a crapshoot”
I had one of those. The sound was ok, but not great. It was loud, though.
For less money, I could get a pair of BOSE Companions, that while less portable than this unit, create a much nice sound field. Today’s BOSE bluetooth portable speakers sound just as good. Pass.
for $3000? I’d buy a used Meridian F80 and have lots of money in my pocket. I just saw a used one for only $1100 on eBay and they were $3000 new. That’s a real, legitimate boom box that would rival a more expensive stereo.
“The rare Apple 1, the very first computer made by Jobs and his other co-founder, Steve Wozniak…”
I could have sworn that the Apple I was built by Woz while Steve Jobs (who was _one_ of the other cofounders – and the head cheerleader) was working on how to make a buck from it.
Regardless… I remember when this came out. It sold well but was not a blockbuster. The price of iPods back then was very high (I had an original 5GB) which, adjusted for inflation to 2017 bucks, sold at $557.20. That was the cost of many PCs at the time, but when compared to other digital players back then, the idea of packing 1,000 tunes vs a couple of dozen was pretty amazing, plus it could be used as an external FireWire hard drive for standard data storage.
Being able to plug it into a decent-sounding amp and cabinet was cool but pricey, so most people interested in this type expansion hung on for a while and used smaller third-party units, with the bedside alarm clock / radio style being the most popular. The big winner was Harmon Kardon’s Sound Sticks jellyfish 2.1-style speaker, which is still being manufactured today. Starting out with only a USB connection, HK developed a version that accepted a standard mini-jack that worked with the iPod.
The idea that someone would pay a premium for something that will stay sealed – that doesn’t make sense to me, but neither does opening it just for the thrill of doing so. To each his own.
You can buy them used for $100 on eBay. If you really want one.