[raid517]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonance The practise of selling through dealers generally has two components: 1. To make sure that the seller actually has a commitment to service and will not embitter the customer against the manufacturer (Grado), and that the seller has some knowledge of the product they are selling and will not misrepresent it. i.e. it is a quality control process for the channel. Think about the difference between buying from some random ebay seller vs. say, Todd the Vinyl Junkie (an authorized reseller.) Those on this forum would trust what Todd has to say, not so much the claims some ebayer with 23 feedback will make. 2. To make sure that there are actual stores that sell this product. High end audio is expensive and many high end audio / video stores will ONLY carry products that protect the channel. The small stores cannot compete against ebay and Internet sellers and in exchange for their service and knowledge and retail presence, they require that the manufacturer protect them. Some high end audio makers have or are considering moving to a 'sell directly on the Internet' approach to get away from the dealer channel, but its still only a small movement. Many people like to feel, touch and try products before buying, so I don't see this going away. Just my 2/100ths.

That is one way of looking at it. There is also the other small matter of a $350.00 price difference between official and unofficial Grado distribution channels to be explained too. As I said this sounds very much to me like price fixing. I can understand all f the reasons you stated - but when you throw in a huge tariff on top of that - and refuse to honour warranties from non authorised distributes - it does begin to look a little underhand.

GJ