Hi, Qwikm. I'll try and take a shot at this.

It is my understanding that for some equipment, unless it is sold by an official dealer, the product is not given the usual warantee provisions. In essence, you are buying the equipment on the "grey market" where the equipment is new, but not authorized to be sold by the seller as part of the company in question's dealer network.

This gives the official dealers an advantage vs. the discount sellers.

Also, many of those pieces may be "new," but may also be imports directly from Japan and not covered by a company's American warantee network. There can be some small differences in voltage, etc...that may disqualify a piece for U.S. warantee protection.

So, you are taking a gamble that product quality will be sufficient to make your warantee worries moot.

If a piece breaks, you can still get it fixed, you will just have to pay for the service.

Apologies if I am giving false info, this is how I think it works.

Best of luck!

QM, you are wise to be cautious and suspicious here. My suggestion would be to visit the web sites of the manufacturers whose products you're interested in, and then look closely for whether the manufacturer has posted any warnings and/or warranty disclaimers about purchasing their products (claimed to be "new and in the box") by sources other than one of their authorized dealers or distributors. If you see this sort of warning, you may also see that the manufacturer in question will often request that consumers notify and report to them, any unauthorized dealers or sources for their products being advertised as "new".

If you purchase a "new" (and often discounted) component from an unauthorized source, the manufacturer will deny you any warranty coverage, and if you have problems down the line, you're on your own, plain and simple.