Warranty...good,bad and the ugly

It'd be great if each company honored their warranties regardless of how or when a product was purchased, but the fact is each company has its own warranty policy based on a business decision they've made.

We can debate it, but what's the end game? Nothing is going to change as a result.

The companies with excellent and liberal product support are well documented in these threads.

Yep, they are well documented but that does not mean we cannot document that again. I was interested in a Pass amp and have no dealers in my area. I asked them if they could work through a local dealer but they said no, they would try and support their established dealers. They did offer to bend over backwards for me to arrange a demo unit, help me find a dealer and pretty much do whatever it took to make me happy. I was not only impressed by what I hear of thier customer support but this is also very impressive dealer support. I am currently looking at saving a little more and going with the xa line or VTL mono blocks when the time arrives.

I spent 25 years (years ago) in the stereo business.Mac is trying to protect their dealers by protecting their dealers profit margins.Bluntly - their aim is give you a powerful disincentive to not buy from anyone except your local dealer and also give their dealers the confidence to try and make each sale of Mac equipment profitable.
How you as a consumer feel about this says something about your retail showroom experiences over the years - maybe no one ever turned you onto a really musical piece of gear as part of the shopping experience or maybe (like a lot of folks) the pleasure of buying great sounding stuff is incomplete unless you also got the worlds cheapest price?
The problem is that brick and mortar retailers need to make a profit and more of a profit than folks who only ship stuff out and maintain no showroom facilities.
Do you like to listen before you buy? Is the experience and reputation of your local dealers of any importance to you? I also understand that it's pretty late in this game - most likely only a few major cities will be able to support a "hi-fi" shop - a lot of music oriented dealers aren't going to make it thru the current downturn.
Personally - never have owned any Mac gear. Have always respected the build quality.

Jab, sounds like we have the same dealer. One of the local dealers here will not negotiate any on the price, even pieces that are clearly negotiated elsewhere. I won't go into their other annoyances but I've called other dealers in nearby states and they always tell me how many people call because the local dealer here is turns them off. There are two McIntosh dealers here and the shop I'm talking about was just recently added as the 2nd one. The first dealer will come off about 7% and the new one won't come off any. Fair is fair but full retail price is economic suicide on resell.