I want to know if anyone here has a US appliance that has high wattage, 1200w onwards

I know you can pick up a step down transformer, to get out 240v, 50hz to 110v 60hz which the US appliance use.
Seems that there's a huge price and chunkiness of the transfers as your wattage goes up
No issue with the size if its really the only solution to go

Anyone got experience with this, ie
1. Is there a way around using a transformer, would a sparkie be able to change the power on the appliance
2. If a transformer is required, anyone recommend a quality slim unit for 1200w onwards?

Thanks