I have purchased an M4000A amplifier and a big Kenwood turntable from HiFiDo in Japan. They arranged the shipping through FedEx, boxed things up extremely well and each shipment arrived within 7 days of shipping.
Shipping was a little expensive but worth the trouble.The boxes were so nice I saved them in the attic.
I also use step down transformers and cannot hear any difference in sound quality nor can I measure any.
Cheers, Alan.