Sending my Denon AVR-X6500H in for Repair

[Tanquen]

I didn't find anyone in the California North Bay area that could do the repair. I was directed to a couple of Independent shops but they refused to even look at it.
Looking at reviews and the list of repair shops on the Denon website is not inspiring. I contacted one in LA and one in Texas and both said it would be like 5 to 6 weeks before they could even look at it. Looking at reviews for multiple repair shops that's a non uncommon thing. I'm sure it doesn't happen to everyone but there's lots of reviews that state it took forever to get the device back only to find out they didn't fix anything.

I'm not sure if it's the best way to go but I went ahead and signed up for the United Radio Inc deal on ebay.

It's a $300 flat rate supposedly but I've already found out they don't cover insurance while they say they cover shipping both ways.

I've not found out what that'll cost yet but I believe if I don't get it packaged by UPS and insured by them at the same time they won't honor the claim later.
So it's already sounding like less of a deal than I thought.

They do offer a $65 feed a look at the AVR but then you've got to ship it to them both ways. I don't know if I did the right thing. I also have the $200 Audyssey MultEQ-X add on. I'm not sure if that's worth anything but the thought was if I can get it repaired and use for a while until I decide what new AVR I want to get, hopefully I could sell it for more than $400-500 bucks.

I double checked with Audyssey and they don't care. If you pay $200 for the license and your receiver dies a month later out of warranty they don't care. The license is only valid under original warranty from Denon or repaired or replacement unit from Denon... Cool.

I just thought I lists my experiences here and let folks know how it goes.

I still have the original box although I'm tempted to go ahead and have them double box it because it looks a little fragile.

I also found the original receipt in the box and I paid $1550 for it in October of 2019.

Issue
I checked the service menu, and the protection history shows a ": DC" error.
Randomly the Power LED flashes red upon startup. A power cycle resolves this, and the unit functions normally until it is shut down. I have also occasionally encountered a problem where it's not placed in protection mode but there is no audio output from any channel, though the subwoofers remain active. This has happened once while the unit was in use, and power cycling restores the audio.

I have already attempted a factory reset, which did not resolve the behavior.

 

[Osvaldo de Garay]

How old is the rig? Perhaps it is starting to suffer of "capacitor pleague".

 

[Tanquen]

I got it in 2019 so says the receipt. I keep hoping we're passed capacitor plague stuff, seems like it's been going on forever. Plus the 6000 series is one that is supposed to be made in Japan with better components and so on. I don't know if it really is but I would hope it was just not straight up capacitor failure.

 

[Tanquen]

The first issue of getting it serviced is the fact that shipping label they provide doesn't include insurance. I know it's broken so it's not worth as much but would be out a fair amount of money if UPS damaged it beyond repair or if UPS lost it completely.

I spoke with United Radio and they said I should purchase insurance if I want it. I then went to UPS store yesterday and they said they could not add insurance to the existing shipping label. I'd have to purchase everything again which would have been like $150+ my costs.

When I told United Radio they said that I could pay for it all again if I wanted and they would put insurance on it when they shipped it back and they did offer to cancel the service purchase altogether.

I then asked them if they could just add the $15 insurance to a new label they did go ahead and do that so I see what happens.

 

[Tanquen]

Just a small update.
The turn around was very fast they received it on the 2nd and shipped it back out on the 3rd. The other two places I had contacted were stating several weeks or longer to get to the repair.
But there is no communication or update from them unfortunately. Assuming it's a quick simple fix but I have to wait till the 11th, to read the paperwork inside and find out. Hopefully it's not a message stating that it bench tested fine then there's nothing wrong with it.

 

[Tanquen]

I received the unit back yesterday, was able to get it all wired up last night and so far it's still working.

I'm not sure if they needed to but they did a factory reset. Luckily I did have a backup of the configuration from when I was trying the factory reset before sending it in.

I had the original box and double boxed it. They returned it in the original box inside one of their boxes double boxed, but they didn't use the styrofoam like paper wrap or whatever that it originally comes with that I also shipped it with. They do some kind of shrink wrap and that did add some smudges to the front of the unit. They're very faint but still I'd rather they had used the same shipping material that it came with and that I had used.

The invoice just mentions repairing the power supply. I am curious to know what they had to do but I'm guessing it's just some little component they replaced for like five bucks. Hopefully it just keeps working.

This is how I shiped it and that's the original material that wraps around the unit and it does a much better job as far as marrying any surface from rubbing while in shipping.

 

[Redacted]

Good news.
It's usually a PSU that dies most often! They most likely swapped the whole module rather than soldered new components on (which is hit and miss and laborious)

 

[Tanquen]

The main thing is that it's working but I'm still curious.

They didn't list any parts and did say it was an intermittent power supply component that was replaced. I'm sure they do a lot of these and it's probably one of a couple of different things in the power supply.

Unit checked for customers complaint.
Verified unit goes into protection.
Located and replaced intermittent power supply component.
All functions are within manufacturer specifications
Reset unit to factory default settings.

I got up this morning and I thought it was broken because I hadn't tried any of the devices that actually run through it. I normally just use the Apple TV and Home Theater PC plugged directly into the television and then eARC back to the AVR so that I can use features like QMS and HDMI 2.1 that the AVR doesn't support. Apparently no newer AVR supports QMS. But it turns out at some point I went crazy and all the HDMI ports into the wrong ports basically. I took pictures and I got everything else plugged in correctly but for some reason I lost track of what the heck I was doing because I didn't just mess up some of them they're just all wrong. Getting old stinks.

I just hope it hangs in there until I get a X6800H on sale or wait for the X6900H.
The only thing I want to try is the Dirac ART room correction. Between a new unit and the license it's a pretty pricey feature to just to try out. A couple of years ago when the X6800H first came out I got it to try Direct Live and I only had a weekend to mess with it before I could return everything and I couldn't tell any difference.

Even if I had liked Dirac Live, I would have sent the X6800H back anyway. It kept dropping eARC from my home theater PC and randomly going to a permanent black screen until you rebooted it. I think there's been a firmer update since then that's supposed to help with eARC between it and the home theater PC but I'm wary. They also removed QMS without saying anything, which I was really interested in trying and from my understanding that's still broken with the HDMI chipset they're using in newest X900 AVRs.
How many years (it's only been like 7) and generations is it gonna be before Denon's $1000 to $7000 HDMI switches can actually support all of HDMI 2 .1 correctly? Maybe in whatever generation comes after the X900?

 

[Osvaldo de Garay]

I worked in a small company that repair industrial electronics (SMPS's, servos' AC/AC motor drivers, industrial PC's) and very unfrequently we said to the owner what did we do inside the unit, and the costumer rarely asked. They only want the thing again producing. Some repairings included adaption of new components no lo longuer manufactured, or not available or too expensive. Several tmes I replaced BJT as switches by MOSFET's, for example, but its external appearance and performance untouched.

Consider it professional secrets.