I used to sell audio equipment and when I first saw the pics of the receiver, I thought to myself, "Sheesh, I've never seen a refurb look as bad as that one does!"
I had assumed, incorrectly, that you had already given it the damp cloth treatment, since refurbs are known to be kind of "funky" sometimes, and fingerprints are common. I'm glad to see it cleaned up nicely, and if it was me, I would probably just keep it, and get the manual and remote replaced.
My friend bought a Pioneer (Don't remember the model anymore) high end receiver about 5 years ago. The box was delivered to me, since he was out of town and he told me to play with it to make sure it was ok. Well, the box was perfect, the manual and remote appeared to be new, but the receiver itself was a mess, dirty, smeared with greasy fingerprints, and it had the same odd smell that a local middle eastern meat market had, kind of smoky and spicy.
I cleaned it up, and got it looking 100% new, but the smell....
I ran it in my basement for a week long torture test and it passed with no problems. My friend comes home, and I tell him about the smell and he's all worked up, he's going to send it back, etc. Then he comes over and says, "Hey, it smells just like my Grandma's kitchen!" He was right. He still has it today, and it still stinks, but it works fine.
Glad to see HK is on the ball these days, I had long long waits getting them to fix or replace anything back when I sold it, in the middle 70's.
