Warranties - Best & Worst - New & Used

As a short comment on Golden_ears comment, (some story there?? ill feelings?), is that I think its easier buying used than new, for that reason. Specifically, and esp in photography, there is alot of grey market stuff sold that isnt always up front about country of origin. Now WHY a phillipines distributed camera lens is not warranty-able in the US I'm not quite sure, except I think its just a corporate turf war about who pays for what.
Here on Audiogon, I have fewer expectations.
But I would think manufacturers though would get the 'good service+good warranty=good used prices=more tolerated higher retail' equation

But as I said in my originating post.. lets stick to specific equipment & facts and not digress too far with our rants

Thor Audio clearly has the best warranty in the industry: initial purchaser gets a lifetime warranty and the second buyer can pay a few hundred dollars to get a 5 year warranty to him (this fee includes a complete inspection by Thor Audio, complete retubing, and one way shipping).

The only way they could make this warranty program better is to simply provide an unconditional lifetime warranty, which they wont because it would support the not-for-profit used market.

Hi Lester ears,
Sorry, I'm not trying to take things off-topic. It's just that I have seen this kind of thing happen, where someone bitches publicly about a company because they wouldn't support a Warranty on a product they bought outside the US, or has been passed-through two or three owners and has been damaged by stupidity. (I mean, just read the warranty info with anything you buy, and you'll see that it's for the US-only! How can you expect anything else?)

Ya, Bryston is pretty good with that warranty. But then, they have less to worry about, since an amplifier is a pretty simple device, compared to a CD player, for example. Like, what can go wrong under normal usage? I don't know for sure, but it seems likely that there's a clause that allows them to decline warranty service if the amp has been abused/used improperly, or accidentally damaged, which is often the case with amp failures. So, they're pretty safe, but the 20 year warranty does make for good ad copy.

When it comes to high end, I've found that most of the manufacturers I've spoken-to are pretty helpful, in or out of warranty. Of course, the attitude of the person calling them fo help is very important...

KRELL

In or out of warrantee, I have never found ANY company, audio or not, that could match the service from Krell. The owner called me once when I had a question, but everyone there has always been extremely helpful.

I would probably give the biggest "thumbs up" to the head of the service department.

Richard

Golden ears, suffice to say I couldn't disagree with you more.