I can't vouch nor claim AKMINER is a scam, but asicminervalue.com isn't reliable when it comes to finding trusted vendors, with that said, S9k is
NOT S9, not S9j, and not S9i, S9k unlike the other three models mentioned is a piece of junk and it's always cheaper to buy, $85 for an S9k sounds about right, you can easily find them at that price, but should anyone buy them? my answer is NO.
Anyway, if someone is looking for a large quantity (100 or more) I can help source them in China, I am not interested in doing so with smaller quantities tho.
Also keep in mind that there is a HUGE difference between buying farm stock as is and buying tested and cleaned miners, given how cheap S9s is, the difference in price between both can be up to 20-30%, and buying farm stock comes with increased risk, but it's cheaper because nobody has to do any work, miners are ready inside the box sitting on the floor or a pallet, they call the shipping company to come to pick it up and that's all about it.
Buying tested and cleaned miners means the sellers will need to acquire more miners than you need to replace dead hashboards, control boards, fans, and whatnot, they will also have to clean them (used miners in China are dirty as hell), test every individual miner for some time, take a video of SN and hashrate on the status page, all that comes at added cost, while you might think testing and cleaning is pretty easy costs nothing, it costs ALOT, especially that the seller would expect high failure rate from the farm stock, so if you order 100 miners, they might need to buy 120 in order to send you a 100 working miners, and we as buyers will have to pay the price for that, plus, the manpower and transportation involved.
I took a few risks of buying untested miners for cheap, overall it was a loss, I would do that if I were in China, but paying for shipping and wasting weeks waiting for miners to arrive, can't be undone, some sellers will offer a replacement, but then sending the gear back to China will cost you more than what you paid in many cases, so personally, I rather pay more to get cleaned and tested miners.
In fact, one of the sellers I know offered me replacements without me having to send the miners back, he took my words for it, I would just tell him 10 gears were broken and he would send 10 for free, but I had to pay for shipping, and wait for weeks to get the replacement, and then even the 10 he sends will still have some failure rate, i tried that a few times and reached to a conclusion that buying farm stock directly when you are not located pretty close to that farm is risky, not worth the money you save.
