A Rant on Quality and User Serviceability

General Area DJ Lounge
1

I need to rant about my experience with InMusic support and a faulty SC6000 unit. Let’s get some backstory out of the way.

I purchased a used X1850 mixer from Guitar Center, my first real dedicated DJ mixer, and a brand new pair of SC6000s from Sweetwater at the beginning of 2023. I had been DJing primarily in Traktor with a Traktor Kontrol S8 (also acquired used from Guitar Center, incidentally). I had, at that point in time, exclusively done gigs only on controllers inside of Traktor.

My purchase decision was driven by the following stipulations:

  1. No all-in-one units, despite the supposed advantages to mobile DJs such as myself.
  2. No exorbitant initial buy-in.
  3. “Club quality” look-and-feel and feature set.

I looked at the Pioneer units available and was not satisfied at a “cost per feature” evaluation. I decided to try out Denon DJ in part because of what I read on these forums as a guest, YouTube videos showcasing the features and feature comparisons to Pioneer DJ equipment, and seeing how Laidback Luke was using them (because YouTube kept recommending him to me). The information I found was enough to convince me, plus the cost was significantly cheaper than Pioneer DJ flagship setups.

I got familiar with the hardware and software and started running some gigs through about July of 2024 when my day job started getting really busy, so I turned back to hobbyist bedroom DJing just to keep up with things and to have a bit of fun.

Here is where things start going wrong.

I had powered on my left SC6000 one day sometime late 2023 or early 2024 to the touchscreen being unresponsive. At this point, I’m out of warranty, so I’m looking around at possible solutions. I have all my settings backed up on an internal SSD on that player, so I pop it out and do a factory flash of the unit. It starts working again. Weird, I thought, but it was working so I didn’t think anything of it.

Fast-forward to a few months ago. I power on the same unit and the same touchscreen issue is happening. I follow the same steps, except to no avail this time. I contact InMusic support, they tell me I’m out of warranty (obviously) and that I can try to use an authorized repair center. I live in Dallas, Texas…there are none around me, so I email the 5 closest ones for quotes and get zero responses…awesome service network you have there InMusic. I contact support again. They tell me the same thing again about authorized repair. I reply that none of their authorized service centers are responding to me. I ask for a repair manual to try and acquire the touchscreen assembly and install it on my own. I’m told this is not recommend, obviously, but what choice do I have? I start search for a service manual, which apparently doesn’t exist anywhere. I also thought this was weird…I just wanted to know in what order to begin tearing down the unit to replace the screen that I had found available for sale from one of InMusic’s authorized service centers.

I am then told that the service manual for the SC6000 is not distributed to anyone outside of their service network because it contains proprietary information. I make my displeasure know and InMusic authorizes an RMA repair for me. I ship out my unit to Nevada for repair and am told 2-4 weeks turnaround time, depending on parts availability. My unit arrives on June 5, 2025. I hear nothing about status. Surely, a simple screen swap isn’t that difficult. I email asking for an update.

I got a response this morning, July 7, 2025, that a screen swap was unsuccessful and that they are sending me a new SC6000. Thanks for the new unit, but why was a touchscreen repair unsuccessful when the screen assembly could just be replaced based on what I saw for sale by one of their authorized service centers? This is just bizarre to me.

The faulty SC6000 saw exactly 7 gigs in climate-controlled environments. My other SC6000 does not have any issues for the same 7 gigs. My equipment is always stored in climate controlled environments and gets powered on pretty regularly. I can accept bad luck of the draw for the faulty unit. But it’s impossible to replace the screen on the faulty unit entirely and requires a brand new unit to be shipped back? This doesn’t inspire confidence in the durability of this hardware if InMusic themselves can’t swap a screen successfully, if that’s what they even attempted to do in the first place.

I really want to like Denon DJ products, and I’ve loved the dual SC6000 setup I bought. However, I have lost confidence in the brand in a multifaceted way, not only this issue of durability. Time to check out the AlphaTheta XDJ-AZ and see how standalone systems work for me, I suppose.

2

A note to Denon DJ/InMusic personnel

  1. I would love to see some user-service options in the future. I see no need that a service manual should have proprietary information if a user of your products wants to attempt a repair on a device that is already out of warranty to begin with. If all I’m looking for is a teardown guide, give me one and tell me that doing my own repairs might lead to unintended consequences.
  2. Your service network is absolute garbage in the United States. Not one of the shops I contacted responded to my quote requests. This is a problem, although I wonder how big of a problem it is for Akai and Moog users (probably not much of one if I had to guess).
  3. If the touchscreen goes out on a unit, give people a way to navigate the system still. Whether that’s with more hardware controls or using an external keyboard, it would have been nice to still have some degree of control over my unit instead of being “dead in the water” because I can’t touch things.
  4. If at all possible, and I understand that memory and storage might be a potential concern, a diagnostic self-test function might be beneficial. For example, in my line of work, I develop software for payment terminals which have touchscreens. The devices I work with provide a utility to walkthrough and test the hardware components, including touch capacitance, in a structured and sequential manner. Had this feature been available, it would have allowed me to more accurately identify what the core issue might be. You already allow different boot modes for firmware updates, so I don’t think it completely unreasonable to add another mode to perform a self-test outside of the normal boot sequence tests.
5

We appreciate your feedback and I have submitted this to our support team. Curious, do you have a case # with Denon Support we can look deeper? You can also email it to rgaudet@inmusicbrands.com too. Thanks.

2 Likes
9

Unfortunately, tech equipment is subject to spurious failure. That’s making me go more modular than all-in-one, which really is all-or-nothing. I do wish Denon DJ had a seamless repair network for out-of warranty customers, at least for some extended period.

Considering you didn’t have an extended warranty, that sounds like they really did step up with customer service.

Edit: of course in your case, I would consider SC6000’s to be a modular setup.

Plus, there you go, inMusic staff, @Rob_Gaudet, is paying attention to user concerns.

10

I will give them credit where credit is due. InMusic absolutely did not have to do a thing for me, and I am grateful that they provided this level of out of warranty support. However, while that is a major positive in my situation, the overall confidence I have with the brand is waning.

11

I will email you further details soon. Thank you for acknowledging my feedback and providing this avenue of contact with you.

12

I think you’ve Nailed this, where the original poster hasn’t

Sure, wouldn’t it be lovely if we lived in a world where nothing ever went wrong, or if it did, your piece of kit was the only item in the repair shop and got turned around instantly.

The touchscreen swap out and still not working is simple enough to understand - the touch screen is a touchscreen sure, but… it’s attached to something, a board which interprets all the touches - a touchscreen can be considered to be like a QWERTY keyboard on a computer …. If you press A on the keyboard and nothing happens, suuuuuure it -could- be a faulty keyboard, or, it could be the computer that the keyboard is plugged into isn’t responding to an “A” being pressed

Also , I’d take reassurance in one unit failing whilst the other unit carries on working flawlessly - the working one shows that anyone yelling “it’s a design fault, it’s a design fault” or “theres no quality control at the factory” is wrong - otherwise both units would be failing if either of those statements was true.

Sometimes…. Things go wrong

Sometimes… the part that goes wrong is different to the part which a gut instinct may have had a hunch about

Many companies prevent access to service manuals - it’s stops have-a-go hero’s from turning a 50 buck repair into a 1000 buck repair

Even Rolls Royce have a spare parts dept - even though surely, it’s a Rolls Royce - nothing should ever go wrong

13

I am not naive enough to believe that things never should go wrong with modern electronics, nor self-centered enough to believe that my equipment should be the top priority in a servicing queue. I don’t think I mentioned anything in my original post to even remotely indicate that I expected this to be the case. I’m not sure where these statements are coming from based on my original remarks.

Based on available parts listings and the very limited tear down information I can see, it would appear the screen itself carries all the necessary circuitry to interpret the touches. However, even if the carrier board (the one that contains the CPU from what I can tell) that the screen attaches to was also nonfunctional, why wouldn’t the repair process also address this faulty board? Rather than state that two components needed to be replaced, the only info I got back from InMusic support was that the repair had failed and they had to ship a new one. This is a puzzling conclusion to me.

I never insinuated a design fault or a lack quality control. I mentioned durability concerns, not critical design failures. I’m not sure where you’re getting that I said or insinuated these things.

I am aware things go wrong. I refuse to believe that my hunch about the touch screen assembly being the faulty component is wrong. The unit behaved exactly as it should have minus the touch inputs. This indicates to me that the carrier board, the one that houses the CPU based on part images, was just fine.

However, in this instance where a product is out of warranty, and I am directed by InMusic support to order the part myself even with the recommendation that I don’t attempt to perform the replacement on my own, such a manual should be provided at customer request…especially if the recommended service network shops don’t respond to you at all.

I could have mentioned this in a much clearer way, but:

15

I have had issues with my SC6000m. I went to update them via wifi and both were updating and then the power went. I turn the power back on in my studio and realised that one of the units were stuck in update mode and the there other wouldn’t turn on. (So that’s what caused the power cut). They have been in the service shop since Jan 2025 and they are still trying to source the parts due to living in New Zealand. Not ony that I have owned them for about 3-4 years and I have only used like 20 times in that time. It ■■■■■

16

A power cut during a critical update process will cause issues for the devices for sure. Are you suggesting that the update process caused the power cut?

17

Yes the power cut was caused by one of the Sc6000m units!

18

Can you explain how? Im no electrician but i understand a little bit about it and find it difficult to understand how any similar electrical device to the SC-6000 can cause a power cut. Is the plug not fused?

19

One was updating fine and the other which caused the power cut was trying to connect to the wi-fi. I have always had issues with connecting to the internet with this one. So I should have updated one at a time and connected them to internet via ethernet cable. This probably wouldn’t have happened!

20

But i dont understand how any of that can cause a power cut?

1 Like
21

I’m guessing the unit just overloaded. My studio is on a separate circuit to my house, so it could only be that!

22

I’d love to see even a shred of evidence that a firmware update caused a power cut - there’s a fuse in the power lead going to the device which would blow first, then the “studio” sockets should be on a trip and that’s on top of whatever power distribution is offered around the studio

Anyway this hijacked topic needs splitting - the “me toos” have a different problem from the op

23

If your referring to a fuse in the socket for the power leads, New Zealand don’t have them like the UK!

24

It was the unit. The studio has got its own circuit breaker and the two units were the only things running.

25

A broken unit may well have an electrical fault but a firmware upgrade didn’t cause a power cut. A power cut during a firmware upgrade will cause problems which may not be recoverable without the service desk.

1 Like