Some companies employ a marketing method and if you get wind of it is a brill money saver, i once was looking for a high spec stereo system in my younger days and saw one at about £500 but heard an obscure cheapo brand was the same internal electronics from same said manufacturer and for £150 quid, a little research and it was confirmed and wasn't limited in anyway just cheaper looking.
A well respected well established brand can be type-cast to the enthusiast end of the market and be limited to low sales high profit, but a good marketing strategy is to also attack the market from the other end with minimal manufacturing cost so as to sell plenty with small profit... usually its all hush hush etc different branding names company address etc and when it works a company can even get a majority and play all price ranges on the shelves to say currys and comet, even the end seller is unaware his differing range may be exclusively a majority from one big company.
As said before the hardest part is to get the knowledge..... it was well practiced and harder to cover-up in the computer market with some budget brands having high end cpu's in but just locked to slower speed. A hear to the ground and the right contacts often got me a bargain price for what normally would be an expensive chip-set and all i had to do was unlock its abilities with software (saving £300). Its not cost effective for manufacturers to design different speed chipsets within a chipset range but little or no cost to lock them down and get a different level of market.
