Why so much negativity about Denon?

[Tarheel_]

In my opinion, you worked way to hard and spent too much of your valubale time solving this problem. If Outlaw was to work like that, they would have never gotton off the ground. Thats whats wrong with Denon

I agree...i did work hard for it. Heck, thats not the full story. Denon actually denied the player had a lip-synch problem when it was well documented here and other websites and clearly obvious on my DVDs. Talk about pulling teeth. AND the player was from an AUTHORIZED DEALER!!!
Anyone considering Denon should attempt a dry run for service. It's a joke...

for the money their asking, they should be more than catering to consumers.

p.s. the player is fantastic though...can't complain about that!

[topspeed]

Superior product, reliability, service, or all three?

I've been a longtime Denon fan and still believe that of the Japanese companies, they (along with Yamaha) put out the best products. While they do outsource, a lot of their critical parts are proprietary and/or designed in-house and it shows in the quality of their sound and picture. They also rarely skimp on parts using Burr-Brown DACs, Faroudja or Silicon Image chips, etc.

However, everyone here seems to be bringing up a very valid point; Denon's customer service is a joke. I've had experience with this and I unequivocally agree. That said, I've owned/own a Denon receiver, tape deck, cd player, and turntable and only had to call them once (for the receiver). While the process was a complete pain in the ass (it's not like they make it easy for you on their website. Forget e-mailing, they never respond. Finding the phone number is the proverbial needle in the haystack routine) once completed, everything was fine. I'd rather go thru one trying experience over the last 20 years than experience wonderful customer service over numerous times because of a faulty unit. I've always said that if you are on a first name basis with your doctor, attorney, or service manager, you've got a problem.

While this may not be the best analogy, consider that thousands of very happy customers wait years to get their hands on a Ferrari; not exactly reknown for their durability or quality. Are there cars that are faster? Better looking? Corner harder? Stop shorter? Damn right. The point is, sometimes you pay for more than just the parts.

[Woochifer]

Superior product, reliability, service, or all three?

I think we would ideally want all three within a reasonable cost. In this day and age, I think that price is really driving everything, which of course puts downward pressures on build quality and service.

Just from my own experiences, I will say that Yamaha's customer service is head and shoulders above Denon's. I wanted to find out a spec with my Yamaha receiver, and they e-mailed me back within 24 hours with the exact answer and a toll-free number for any follow up questions. When I requested a catalog, I had it in less than two weeks.

When I wanted to find out whether any firmware updates had been issued for my occasionally glitchy Denon DVD player, it took three e-mail messages (the third message mentioned how quickly Yamaha had gotten back to me) over a two-month period for them to finally respond. Their solution? Ship my DVD player to their Southern California office and they'll take a look at it! I gave them the serial number and manufacturing date, why wouldn't they know? If I want to call them, it's long distance. Since I have an extended warranty, I should've probably checked with the store where I bought the unit first.

Another customer service plug I'll put in is for Bissell vacuums. My parents bought one of their cordless vacs and it failed after it got tangled with carpet threads. Called Bissell, they just asked for the serial number and sent out a new unit via 2-day mail.

While I haven't had good experiences with Sony's electronics customer service, their music department is great. Sony Music is the only company that has a toll-free number to report defects, and when my Miles Davis *****es' Brew boxset (absolutely sublime music) had 16-pages missing from the book/case, they sent me a whole new set (minus the CDs) within a week.

[aienco]

I love Denon gear. Even though it isnt what it used to be. I'm in Australia. I used to sell Denon HiFi 25 years ago and I can tell you a lot has changed. The distributors of Denon here, also distribute Marantz and Nad, but they have no idea about Denon products nor do they care about helping customers. Thats probably why Denon is getting bashed so much. Its probably the same all round the world. I still love Denon stuff but boy am I dissapointed they stopped the GOLD on the DVD players and went for the same old black and silver. The Gold really looked classy and its somthing Denon has had from the beginining.