Do not buy any Sonus Faber used

Just checked their web site and did not see anything under their general home page tabs or under the Sonus Faber tabs.

If I had to guess, I would say that this is aimed at both the gray market and the re-sale market. If just gray market, then no warranty service would have been sufficient. I think it's brand suicide, or at least distributor suicide, but what do I know?

Why should Sumiko (the distributor) support the grey marketer's activities?

Couldn't agree more, but what about the innocent poor shmuck who buys a used pair under assurance that they were NOT gray market. Not covering warranty repairs is perfectly appropriate. Having to prove the provenance of any item for which you are ordering a apare part is draconian, IMO.

Good analogy Elberoth2; esp. since SF speakers can easily cost as much or MORE than I have ever paid for a car! The only motive that I could impute to VW if they were to implement such a policy, would be that they wanted to eliminate the private re-sale market. Now you may ask, how does that translate to our hobby? i believe that you would have a situation like the "bad old days". The only outlet for your used gear would be your local high-end dealer. He/she controlled the second hand market and would give you $0.10 on the dollar for your gear in cash (re-selling for $.50 on the dollar) or maybe $0.20 in credit toward a trade priced at full retail!!! No wonder they want to eliminate the re-sale market. Given that gray market is a small portion of total sales (of course, since margins are slim, its significant in terms of lost new sales), and re-sales would be a small portion of that portion, I don't think that the refusal to sell parts unless you can verify proper purchase is definitely aimed at restricting second hand sales. IOW, Audiogon!!!!