Audio Aero Capitole II with no serial numbers?

Great minds think alike.

Swampwalker - good post. However on the last line you state, "Now if you buy retail and don't get the value-added service, its time to take your $ elsewhere." To my understanding, the way dealerships are setup in the US prevents dealers from selling into territories which are not their own.

I doubt many people buy equipment without serial numbers by choice. They are usually tricked into doing so or inadvertently overlook the issue.

Swampwalker wrote: I'm not in the high end (or any manufacturing) business, but I am self-employed. I would guess that those of you who think that they should be anywhere but "on their own" with such a unit have never been a business owner

This comment makes me glad you are NOT a high end manufacturer. If *I* were the manufacturer in question, you bet I would take care of the customer. Also, I would find it very interesting to discover how illegal activities were being conducted using my product. I would even go the extent of designing a system where matching serial numbers are etched into the chassis, main internal component and the rear of the unit.

IF a customer contacted me with a "gray market" problem I would take the unit back immediately because it then becomes a valuable tool in identifying problems within my own manufacturing / distribution process that I as the manufacturer must control.

If I as the "business owner" fail to identify these problems and work to resolve them (instead of ignore them) then I fail all my customers regardless of how they obtained my equipment.

We are the dealer for Audio Aero in the Colorado region and we agree 110% (didn't know that %'s made sense that high, didya? Cause they don't. But anyway... :-) with Bwhite. If someone comes to us with a problem with a gray market player or amp, we will try to help the best we can - both the person with the problem component and Audio Aero with the gray market importing problem (of which there doesn't seem to be much of one beyond that of any other European manufactorer out there that builds small, expensive pieces of equipment). Filing off of serial #s appears to me to involve theft - but I am no detective.