I couldn't agree more about paying more for less hassle. I have to take back what I said though: the DVM is made in Taiwan... It has a 3-yr guarantee, so it'll be going back to the OEM (it's a Meterman 38XR btw, supposedly made by Fluke...).
An equivalent Fluke would cost around 3-times as much, and the Meterman is supposedly made by Fluke (it's part of Fluke's empire).
You live and you learn... I jumped to the wrong conclusion, as I've seen catastrophic damage due to Vreg's going out of regulation before, so I feared the worst...
J
btw - I was using my Nixie-tubed frequency counter yesterday. It's well over 30 years old, but is still calibrated within 10 Hertz when measuring 260 K - not bad!