Wary of Denon

[PhreePhly]

<font color='#000000'>I was wondering if anyone has noticed a decline in the quality of Denon components?  I have been a fan of their products for over 10 years.  I bought my first receiver, cd player and tape deck way back in 1991.  I moved to Europe and ran the set up on a transformer for 3 years and came back to the states with everything working great.  I decided to move into home theater, so I gave my old receiver to a friend and bought a AVR-2802 and a DVD-2800 2 years and 3 months ago.

Today, I went to listen to a CD and got no sound.  Changed the input to the TV, no sound.  I have been messing with the system, but cannot figure out what is wrong.  I opened up the unit to check all of the fuses and they are fine.  Occassionally, when I power down the unit and initialize the processor, I get sound, but if I change anything other than volume, I lose all sound.

Unfortunately, I am 3 months out of warranty.  I bought the unit at the Good Guys, but can't find the receipt.

So now the question is to try and repair the unit, not sure what that will cost, or buy a new receiver.  I like what I've been hearing about the 3805, but am wondering about Denon quality.

Also, what is a nominal price to troubleshoot a modern receiver?

Thanks,

Sam</font>

 

[Rob Babcock]

<font color='#8D38C9'>I've heard that only a few models are built in Japan nowadays- supposedly the ones that aren't have occasionally had QC problems. &nbsp;I've bought several Denon products relatively recently and have had no problems. &nbsp;It's hard to say; I could just be lucky.</font>

 

[Martin_S]

<font color='#000000'>According to the rear panel photo on the Denon website, the 2803 is made in Japan. I would think that the 2802 was as well.

I have a Denon &quot;personal&quot; system (3-CD changer/receiver with Mission small bookshelf speakers) that has been nothing but trouble. The CD player failed 3 times. I bought the thing grey market, so I had no local warranty support. I sent it to Denon service 3 times, and each time I contacted them, it was a big PITA. I hate explaining technical things to someone whose native language is not English. This was 4-ish years ago; maybe things have changed.

I think this problem is generally mechanical (the changer is once again kaput), as it doesn't recognize the presence of the disc. As a tuner/preamp/amp, it's been great, even though it was built in Taiwan, or wherever (i.e., not Japan). What I took away from this experience is: don't trust mechanically fussy multi-disc changers built in countries not known for manufacturinig quality.

As troubling as that unit has been, I'm still contemplating a new 3805, but I will definitely buy local. Hopefully your Good Guys store will facilitate the repair, even if your 2802 is out of warranty. Dealing directly with Denon repair sucks.</font>