I am generally a fan of refurbs from Accessories4Less as I have bought several units from them and not had a single issue. At this point, if I bought one hat arrived DOA and had to eat the entire cost with no recourse, I would still be ahead of the game!
However, I would add a couple of thoughts after reading other people's woes:
1) The real benefit of refurbs is the cost savings. If you were buying in February, then, traditionally, you would be looking at MSRP pricing (or close) on a new unit vs a deep discount on the refurb unit! Right now, (if still in stock) last years models are being nicely discounted and the refurb may only save $100-200. That may still be worth it (again, I have a perfect record of refurbs without any issues from A4L), but, certainly, it is not as compelling as saving $400-500. I always check Amazon and Crutchfield for open box returns (with 3 year warranty, which is also offered on several refurb units from A4L). I have seen a new open box unit from Amazon at only $50 more than the refurb and went with the open box (which also had the option for a 30 day return with return shipping paid via Amazon Prime).
2) Panurgy is apparently a sad place to send your gear for repair. I am pretty sure that you have alternatives within driving distance which you would want to use rather than paying to ship to Panurgy, but check the Denon website for local manufacturer authorized warranty service centers. I had the HDMI board on a Marantz NR-1605 go bad after 10-12 months. I drove into the belly of the beast that is Atlanta and one week later drove back to pick up a replacement unit that Marantz sent to the repair center! I considered that good service!
VPMS has a very concerning experience and I wonder if Covid-19 is influencing parts availability and they have some stupid internal performance metric that if a unit stay in their facility for over a certain time the repair guys get demerits (I have seem this type of BS happen too often). Any way you look at it they seem to be a crappy place and it is a shame that Denon/Marantz use them as their mail-in repair location.
Not that it would reduce ADTG's justified frustration, but I do believe that his unfortunate experience with his Denon pre-pro is highly influenced by the fact that he bought a top of the line unit from Denon that Denon decided to discontinue production without any updated model to replace it. My speculation on that was it was essentially an "experimental model" (no other manufacturers have attempted to replicate the capabilities of that unit) that turned out to be inherently problematic after several years. His unit lasted 8 years, but Denon did not decide to maintain stock of parts inventory to repair units that far into their service life. ADTG certainly has a legit beef, but I am a little slower than he is to consider his experience representative of what to expect with a typical AVR.
I am generally a fan of Yamaha as a company and for me the reason I choose Denon is the capability of Audyssey with the App that allows you to set it to only work below say 300Hz - in other words, only target room effects. Also, it seems that you do pay a premium for Yamaha's better units and the discounts are not so commonly available as for Denon.
That's my 2 cents on this.
If you feel that your room has no significant issues,
