Nottop..
this audio business is so personal & subjective. people will say their stuff is the best and I don't blame them. you will get alot of opions and that just that OPIONS. bottom line is, you really need to have a listen for yourself and see if you like it or not. for me, I value not just the sound, but the LOOK also and MBL is it for me. It give me chill and memerize their look every time i listen to it. as for warranty stuff, yes, mbl use to have distributor issue, but they have resolve that problem. their new distributor is MBL of North America in New York. Jeremy is their new distributor here in the US and he is very nice guy. I met him for the first time at the 2012 CES and listen to their 101 x-treme and was very very please. I'm sure they will take care of any problems you may have and thats go for every manufactures. what I'm trying to say is, don't worry about the gears breaking down before you even own it. find out what you like first then go from there. MBL being around for a long time now and they are not going anywhere. if you keep worry like that, you will never own any nice stuff/gears.
BTW, I'm about 40 minute away from Mr. Albert Porter and I have listen to his system before. He have a very nice system and he is very nice guy to boot. he is very knowledgable and really informative. I do have high respect for him but his taste is just different then my. again, it all come down to personal taste & preferences. if you ever in Dallas/Fort Worth, shoot us an email and you can listen to both system. good luck in your journey and decisions and please let us know what you end up.