Hi Alec, First I realise that this is a bit off topic but still relevant.(Apologies)
As you probably know, I design electronic instruments for a living and all our devices include a built-in universal switched mode supply, or, if portable and battery driven, a switched mode DC-DC converter. Ok, we do use quite a bit of filtering, but these instruments work with sensors which produce sometimes just a few microvolts of signal and we still manage to produce perfectly good noise free results.
We are only a small firm but we export all over the world, as Matsush*ta do, and have to cope with the varying available supply voltages (sometimes as low as 95Volts AC in Japan!). I don't think it would be too much trouble for them to incorporate a suitable universal power supply, considering the resources at their disposal.

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Willum