Would appreciate some feedback and experience of buying A/V receivers from Amazon US. They have some great pricing that are literally half of what it cost here shipped but just worried for warranty and if some brands do have international warranty. Thanks.
Not too many manufacturers of AV receivers allow for dual voltage. If you are looking for something decent www.emotiva.com get excellent reviews and are made dual voltage.
Otherwise, amazon UK and Germany often have great pricing and are 240volt so you just need a normal plug adapter. There is also a thread on DTV forum about buying from HK, usually Denon or Marantz products.
They have some great pricing that are literally half of what it cost here
Are you adding in Shipping costs?
If you are going to buy from overseas go for the UK or anywhere in Europe because you won't have a voltage problem. In fact if you are going to be in Europe any time soon you might be able to get the store to sell it to you tax free and organise shipping back to Australia for you.
As for warranty it would depend on the manufacturer…
I bought a Pioneer A/V Receiver from Amazon Germany, (rather than Amazon US to avoid the voltage issue). The price on Amazon German was about 50% of of the JB HiFi price even after shipping. The Receiver became faulty and Pioneer Australia disavowed it (unsurprisingly).
But, the support from Amazon Germany throughout was first class.
They asked me to ship it back to them (the return insured shipping cost was several hundred dollars). They DID then promptly refund me the full purchase cost and return shipping, so I was not out of pocket.
I would happily buy from Amazon internationally again.
I would not buy a Pioneer product again :-) I replaced the faulty Pioneer with a Yamaha.
I was looking for a reasonably expensive Marantz AV Pre Amp. RRP in the US was $1599, RRP in Aus $2899. I could buy it from Amazon for around $1299 I think but in the end I bought one from eBay that had been bought locally. Cost was around $1600 I think so I'm pretty happy to get an almost brand new product, locally supplied and for only a few bucks more than one that would need a transformer and no local warranty
I don't think it is worth the trouble. Also factor in power conversion. Efficient high wattage step down transformers are costly, >$50!
I think a friend of mine ended up buying this:
http://www.tortech.com.au/step-down-transformer-australia/us…