manufactured refurbished

I looked at the ad on ebay and saw all the negative feedback, most relating to poor service and defective items. It looks like 3rd party service. It's a gamble.

I'll tell you my experiences;
1. bought refurbished item online from Apple with warranty...great experience.
2. bought a refurb preamp from a dealer on ebay w/ warranty... died after a couple of weeks, and then began a back and forth shipping event to a 3rd party tech for warranty service. The dealer was covering the repair cost, not the manufacturer. I paid a couple hundred in shipping.

I would buy refurb again, but the bottom line is the poor feedback.

thank you everyone for your responses. I am practically interested in Lowrider57's response. It looks like I should be asking questions about who is doing the refurb. Even though the manufacturer is backing the repairs the work might have been done by a 3rd party, which might not be up to par with the original manufacturer.

I have purchased a few "B" stock Sony items.. No problems at all.
Kind of like buying a 'Demo' item IMO.

Swampwalker's suggestion to research the particular model you wish to purchase is good advice. I bought a refurb television that was known to have problems. Had I researched online and read the horror stories from others about that model, I would never have bought it. After 3 years of grief, I finally gave up on it and bought a new one.

My experience with refurbed electronics has, otherwise, been positive.

I sell both new "A" stock, and refurbished, or "B" stock. As a rule, I have almost no problems with the refurbished products. Almost every piece of gear I have at home is "B" stock. I have never had a single piece of mine fail. In many cases, it is something that required a firmware update. In that case, you are less likely to have a problem than buying the "new" one that may not have the most current firmware. Personally, I wouldn't worry about it.