The saddest is not even the astronomically overpriced stuff. At least, the people who buy those have plenty of easily disposable income. What I don't like are like the case I know described in the next paragraph.
A person I know (can't give too much details in case he's lurking here) bought a 100,000$ piece of equipment. At least, that's the suggested retailed price. He was ecstatic because he got it "used" for 12,000$ (bargained down to 10,500$, shipping free).
The "used" piece of equipment is in perfect condition... like new (I have to admit the design is absolutely gorgous for a stereo <product-type-witheld> product). Now the sadder part is that he told me that these babies are so good and exclusive (hand-built by the world-renowed designer), that they are only available used through Audiogon and other such "auction/used" places.
So he is proud of having bought a $$$ piece of equipment for 10% of it's retail value... which is never sold at that price... That's sad because the person in question is far from being rich, but just couldn't resist the "amazing deal" he found... that can certainly be traced to the designer himself... since all those bargains are shipping from the same city... (I checked over the past year!).
If a rich person is swindled to buy 17,000$ cables, I don't give a crap. But misleading someone out of 10,000$ just because of a totally fake "deal of the century", that hurts.
