I just packed up a Panny BD-85 which is less than a year old for service/replacement. That it broke in less than a year doesn't really bother me. This stuff happens to the best of them and we each draw the short straw on occasion. That's what the warranty is for, right? Continue on, dear reader...
Well, what their customer service put me through before admitting their unit was bad was an abomination. It took over two hours and crawling around behind my rack for no good reason aside from to try and deflect the blame away from their product.
The problem was simple to describe and demonstrate: The 5.1 analog output (which feeds the "Aux In" on my trusty Denon 2802) stopped sending out the subwoofer signal. I could hear it in my system and the DMP's sown test tones verified this. I replaced the cable and reinitialized the unit before calling in the problem.
So, I placed the call and got connected to a human being who spoke English in reasonable time. That's a good start.
We talked, I described the problem and what steps I took to correct/isolate the problem. He had me go through the menu and do the test tones again. No problem. He then had me "reboot" the system and reinitialize it again. Again, no problem.
I know from experience that end users can overlook the obvious sometimes and don't mind playing the game. One would think that's it, right? Nuh-huh.
Now it starts to get weird.
He had me find and use a coaxial feed between the DMP and my Denon. So, behind the rack I go. I just loved crawling around behind my stuff and reconfiguring my receiver on the fly.
This proved that, lo and behold, my old Denon receiver correctly returned a 5.1 signal while their BD-85 processor would not. He asked me if I was OK with using the coaxial feed from now on and could they close the book on this. I was a bit taken aback but simply said no, one of the main reasons I bought this unit WAS the analog outputs. (The other was wi-fi right out of the box)
He then asked if my Denon 2802 had any firmware updates applied. I said no, it's never needed it. Why does he ask? He then flat-out said that the problem was that the Denon's firmware was out of date. I said that no, the problem is that the DMP's processor doesn't output the subwoofer channel and we just proved that.
The conversation went downhill from here. I got to meet his supervisor and needless to say, it's on it's way to their Mc Allen, Texas customer service facility with a RA# and nice letter.
Now, I don't hold it against them that the unit failed. Stuff happens. But, that BS they tried to sell me was unconscionable. Their attempts at denial/deflection are unbelieveable.
