The Same-IEM Price Index shows what actually happened to comparable used-IEM prices, including normal product aging. The experimental Lifecycle-Adjusted Index asks the harder question: are those IEMs becoming cheaper or more expensive than historical IEMs did at comparable ages? Both are anchored to 100 in January 2024.
Drill-through: click a headline metric, chart point/bar, or MSRP-tier row to see the IEMs behind it.
Observed same-IEM price movement, equal-weighted across contributors. This includes ordinary product aging and depreciation. Hover for contributor count; click a point for drill-through. The current month may be partial.
Compares the observed same-IEM price path with a historical age-peer depreciation benchmark, learned only from pre-2024 observations and equal-weighted across IEMs. 100 means prices are tracking that historical aging path; below 100 means they are depreciating faster.
Current interpretation: 97.6 means the post-2024 market has performed -2.4% relative to the historical age/depreciation path. This is a residual market indicator, not a causal estimate of demand.
Monthly median closed-listing price with the 25th–75th percentile range. This is intentionally mix-sensitive, so changes can reflect which products traded as well as price movement.
These views are useful for validating tracker depth and catalog composition, but they are more sensitive to when the tracker was built and how complete older product data is. They are collapsed by default for that reason.
Monthly clean closed-sale count and distinct IEM count. Recent periods naturally benefit from better tracker coverage, so use this mainly as a data-depth diagnostic.
Every matched priced listing by month, plus distinct IEMs listed and closed. This is strongly affected by tracker coverage and is not a clean measure of underlying market growth.
Count of cataloged IEM models by release year. Catalog completeness varies by year, especially before 2024.
Median original MSRP with 25th–75th percentiles. Only years with at least 5 cataloged products with MSRP are plotted; legacy comparisons should still be treated as directional because catalog coverage varies.
Cataloged releases by original-MSRP tier and year. Useful for catalog composition checks, but not a complete industry release census.
A current-state comparison of market value and resale retention across original-MSRP tiers. Median retention requires at least 3 clean samples per IEM, and tier indices appear only when repeat-IEM coverage is sufficient.
| Original MSRP Tier | Tracked IEMs | Median Market Value | Median Retention | Index | 12m Move |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under $500 | 149 | $130.03 | 61.8% | 58.3 | -15.5% |
| $500–999 | 45 | $389.38 | 53.3% | 68.5 | -17.1% |
| $1,000–1,999 | 57 | $713.23 | 53.4% | 53.2 | -17.2% |
| $2,000–2,999 | 24 | $1,214.18 | 50.7% | 63.0 | -10.6% |
| $3,000+ | 47 | $2,422.78 | 56.4% | 58.1 | -20.6% |
The historical age-peer curve is learned only from pre-January-2024 observations. Each IEM gets one vote within an age band so frequently traded models cannot dominate it. Because most catalog entries have a release year rather than an exact release date, broad age bands are used; when only a year is known, July 1 is used as the neutral midpoint.
| Product age | Expected retention | Pre-2024 observations | Distinct IEMs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 2y | 70.7% | 339 | 62 |
| 2–4y | 54.3% | 192 | 41 |
| 4–6y | 54.3% | 104 | 18 |
| 6–9y | 51.0% | 56 | 9 |
Pre-2024 monthly median prices are divided by original MSRP and grouped into broad age bands. Each IEM is reduced to one typical retention value per band, and post-2024 observations never train the benchmark.
For every repeat-IEM price change, the model compares the observed monthlyized move with the move expected as that exact IEM gets older.
Each month's median excess move is compounded from 100. Below 100 means the market is weaker than the historical lifecycle path; above 100 means stronger.
Caveat: age, calendar period, and release cohort cannot be perfectly separated without additional assumptions. Successor launches, changing tastes, cohort mix, condition, and incomplete legacy coverage can remain in the residual. Read this as “performance versus historical age peers,” not “demand is down X%.”
Clean closed sales are collapsed to a monthly median for each IEM. A frequently traded model therefore does not automatically dominate the market.
The index looks at price changes for an IEM between observations up to six months apart, monthlyizes that change, and rejects extreme 4× / 0.25× jumps as likely bad data.
Each month's move is the median same-IEM change across at least 5 contributors. The moves are compounded from a January 2024 value of 100.
This is an analytical index, not an investable price index. Condition, accessories, regional differences, sample depth, and the exact IEMs trading in a month can still affect the result.
Get notified when a matching IEM is added to the tracker.
