audio research purchase

If you go to the dealer page on the Audio Research website, you'll see "Audio Research Headquarters" listed.

If you are referring to Naper I suspect that they are a mid to high end dealer and installer DBA The Little Guys.

If so it would make sense that the unit was purchased factory direct.

Ask them.

DeKay

yes ask them directly - there can be plenty of 'exceptions' to the dealer policy at arc, for a variety of reasons, as others here have mentioned

futhermore. some sellers on us audiomart are in fact smaller retail dealers who don’t identify themselves as such on the site when they post used items for sale 

Thank you all for your help.

 I have a ref5se now, and came across the ref6, and saw that it is only  about two hour drive from my place. Which means no shipping and a demo of unit.

@dekay . Yes 👍

Can I assume that there would be an uptick in what I already enjoy with my ref5se?Can’t swing a ref6se at this time.

For a short time Audio Research had a trade-in program direct from the factory that included the Ref 6. And yes, it will be a notably improvement over your Ref 5SE, but obviously smaller than moving up to the Ref 6SE.