What’s the biggest selling electronic music gear of 2023, we hear you ask? Reverb has the answer and it might not surprise you…
Reverb has just published its end of year sales charts, and while one stat hasn’t changed for five years – top of the secondhand tree is the Teenage Engineering OP-1 portable workstation – both the new and used charts are dominated by cheap, portable and compact music production items.
The popular online music gear retailer publishes its new and used sales lists this time every year, and for five years running, OP-1 has been the number one secondhand buy. However, it is by no means the only TE product to feature in the charts.
Surprisingly, top of the new gear chart is Teenage Engineering’s five-year-old (but still available) PO-33 K.O! sampler. And the company’s brand new $299 EP-133 K.O. II also makes the top 10, mere weeks after its launch.
The rest of both Reverb's new and used charts are dominated by cheaper gear - not perhaps all that shocking given the challenging cost-of-living conditions around the world this year.
In the new chart, the Roland SP-404 MkII is in second place behind the PO-33, and the excellent Akai MPK Mini MkIII keyboard controller takes third. Elsewhere, the Arturia MicroFreak and its larger sibling the MiniFreak are both in the top 10, and most of the current Korg Volca range sits in the top 20.
The only four-figure product to feature in the new chart is another Teenage Engineering entry, OP-1 Field, which just sneaks into the top 20 at 19.
As far as used gear goes, there’s no surprise that OP-1 is top of the secondhand gear list, for a couple of reasons. For one thing, It’s been top of chart list for the last four years, so a fifth was always on the cards. Plus, it's a better buy now, having seen its secondhand price fall by at least $200, according to Reverb.
In fact, we’d argue that the price drop has been even more dramatic; there was OP-1 fever three years ago which saw its price soar well into four figures, but since the release of the more expensive (but much better) £1,700/$2,000 OP-1 Field in August 2022, OP-1's secondhand price has fallen to as little as (currently) £699.
Other notable inclusions in the used chart are the ubiquitous Korg MicroKorg at number 3, which will probably still be in the charts next century, and the Elektron Digitakt at number 2, behind the OP-1.
The biggest surprise is the Alesis SR16 being in the top 10 – this was a drum machine we owned about 500 years ago.
Here are Reverb's top 10s in both the new and used categories.
New electronic music gear top 10
Used electronic music gear top 10
10 Alesis SR-16
You can see the full charts, including another that merges both new and used sales - another victory for the OP-1 - at the Reverb website here.
