Actually, at least in my area, you don't see Salk or Ascend's top tier speakers for sale ever. I've been scouring craigslist for a long time now and have found 1 pair of Ascend Acoustics Sierra 2s. Which I bought... lol.
Now that could just be a scale thing too. The bigger companies are able to produce a lot more, sell a lot more, which leads to more chances for someone to not be happy for one reason or another.
@Pogre
Pogre and I live in the same general area, within 20 minutes of each other. I would echo his observation: you just don't see Salks or Ascends up for sale used out here in the West. We are a long ways from where Salk is headquartered and that may have something to do with it. You also just won't see many folks give a bad review either.
The original thread started with a question about why Salk and companies like Ascend make a speaker that is so much better than the commercial brands. That was the essence of it. My first thought on the original topic is that they may not, but, we perceive they do. I believe several posters point this out. Several factors contribute to that.
The target market and actual coverage by Salk (I am a Salk owner) is fairly limited just because he is a small business and has a fixed production capacity. Salk makes its reputation on a super high quality set of cabinets and a very well engineered and superb sounding speaker. The wait time can be excrutiating: 4 to 6 months. Who wants to wait 4 to 6 months in this culture of instant gratification?
Your choices are also limited and well defined. Lots of people don't like that either. Add those things up and you find the customer set that sticks it out and buys a set of Salks is pretty convinced its a great speaker. If you are willing to live with the wait time and all the vagaries of getting your hands on a set, you must be pretty convinced about the speaker.
I think that mindset contributes a whole lot to why you don't see people dumping them used or writing anything but positive reviews. I know I love mine. They make me happy every single time I sit down to listen. I go up and take a close look at those beautiful cabinets and I just marvel at them. Are they actually better than anything from the big box companies? I can't tell you ! Don't know ! I would guess that there are products within each of the really great speaker brands that could hold their own against them.