Defective unit? Uhhhmmm, No. Unless the countless hundreds of others acting the same way are defective too. In which case its not a defective unit but rather product or designSo $3K for a piece of junk then? I love headless panther reviews like these, makes my day.
Then again maybe it was a defective unit? Who knows with that glitchy output.
For AVRs or pre/pros Denon sounds like the only the way to go these days. Or if you are like me just find a high quality dinosaur from the early 2000's, feed it optical in from a Monoprice Blackbird and be done with it.