This experience I am going to quickly relate is a lot lower $ than yours, but back in ’99 there was a local dealer getting out of 2 ch stereo and getting more into HT and he had an old heavily altered (to the point it would have been hard to sell) SLP90 he wanted to get rid of. I was getting out of HT and way more into 2 ch stereo and I wanted to upgrade my HT digital preamp, so I asked the dealer if I could take his pre home and he let me. I loved it, so I told the dealer I’d buy it but I would want to have Cary undo some of the mods so would he (the dealer) take less than asking? He said he would.
Maybe less than a year later, to show off some of his new HT stuff, he had an open house with food and booze . . . I knew he had a pair of those little 15 wpc Cary SET 300B monoblocks for sale and I was thinking I might be interested in the SET experience, so I showed up at the open house and asked if I could take them home. He said no. Which I thought was bad business as I had spent money there before and helped him clkear inventory he didn’t want, but, whatever.