I’m really sorry to hear this. I’ve had a similar issue where an LED on my Prime 4+ died after a year and a half of owning the device. No spills, no bumps or hits, just a failed LED that should have lasted another 20 years easily.
And on top of their unwillingness to own up to the issue and their claims that “it’s not a common issue” though there are others with the same problem… There are only like five service places in the USA, and none of them are anywhere near me. Pioneer is basically the same, where there are limited service places, but mentioning because it’s still frustrating.
While I’m still here to make the best of it, it’s enough that I wont be purchasing any additional Denon products. If they can’t get an LED right then I don’t want to know what other issues my 2,000$ device might have, and when the other LEDs will die. I’d planned to get a mixer and some SC6000s for the house, using the Prime 4+ on the go.
It’s one thing for moving parts such as a fader to degrade and break over time, and we can have opinions of how much stress they should handle, etc, but an LED should work for tens of thousands of hours and can only be an issue if overloaded, cheap component or poor engineering; none of which are my fault.
And indeed a failed LED on a Prime, isn’t … repeat ISNT a common problem.
Sure there might be 10 users around the world who have mentioned a failed LED on a prime (admittedly, when I searched the internet, I found only 2 such mentions, 3 including yours. So 3 failed LEDs on primes worldwide - now if Denon DJ had only sold 3 Primes ever, then 3 Primes with and LED faulty, wow that would indeed be a 100% fail rate, 100% “common”
But what if 3 LED fails were the count when no 3 Primes had been sold worldwide, but 30, or 300, or 3,000, or 30,000 or 300,000?
“Common” stops becoming a valid way of describing 3 failed LEDs remarkably quick.
Open up 100 iPhone boxes ….. at least one will be faulty…. Open up 100 Ultra 23 Samsungs at least one will be faulty - that doesn’t make it common.
Anything…. Anything at all, from an LED to a multi core processor can fail - such devices arent made by InMusic , they buy them in - there’s bound to be some LEDs with shorter lifespans than others - and no need to blindly condemn any product which has that brand of LED in it.
I’m not sure what your point about how common something is. My point is that it’s not something unique to me, it’s something that’s happened more than once. My argument isn’t to suggest it’s common, just stating the reasoning Denon told me they wouldn’t fix it. I am frustrated that Denon won’t fix it because they state it’s not common enough. They aren’t saying they won’t fix it because it’s not a problem.
I’m also not sure your point about the number of LEDs that go out. If I pay more than 2000$ for something, I expect all of the LEDs to work, and not a single one to go out prematurely.
I’m not sure where you get your money that you’d be happy with those results.
And yes, I expect the engineers in charge of components to have an understanding of the component lifespans, quality factors, price, tolerances, etc, while keeping an eye open for the use of those components in their devices, the actual results, and ensuring their customers are getting the quality components they think they are purchasing.
It’s not contentious to allow the InMusic engineers who you claim to have spoken to, to say “it’s not a common issue” then.
Also yes, LEDs are regularly purported to have a mean (average) time between failures (MTBF) of thousands of hours, much better than say, an incandescent bulb … but LEDs are like any electronic component; they -can- fail from time to time before they reach their MTBF - that figure is compiled from a significant number of that component being tested and the most frequently encountered longevity being used as the resulting figure for MTBF quotes.
What is unrealistic is the “prematurely” part of the expectation:
“Prematurely” -??? …. So if there’s 40 identical to look at LEDs on a product and the LEDs are rated at 140,000 hours MTBF - that one fateful day in a few years time, all 40 will blink out at once? I’d certainly hope not… but it’s not right to point at the first LED to go out and claim it failed prematurely, nor indeed praise the last one to fail and label it “ Old Faithful “
Things go wrong. I suspect there may have been more behind any story of repair centre not offering to fix a particular minor fault on its own. Indeed you did confirm in your post above that the unit was 18 months old so out of warranty. To my knowledge few manufacturers of audio gear offer different length warranties for different components eg: I know of none who advertise “This product comes with a 12 month warranty in general, but we give a 3.6 year warranty on the LEDs.
When all is said and done , it’s a LED , it -can- be fixed , but as it’s out of warranty it won’t be a free fix. Or is it…. “the principle of the thing”
There’s no magic wand option. There’s no component or product which will have a “never ever ever ever” goes wrong - and not every repair bill can be wiggled out of
LED burnout far below the MTBF spec for modern LEDs, even if not widespread, is an issue and should have an official support option, either by warranty or paid out-of-warranty options. Your constant diminishment of the issues faced by others is quite annoying.
Well, I’m not suggesting anybody take anything personally with the failures, but yeah, if you have components that should last 140,000 hours, and they aren’t living up to those standards, I expect for the manufacturer to help me with that issue.
And I expect that they monitor how much this is costing them. And if it does become “common”, or more of an issue to their bottom line, they put pressure on the component manufacturer, not the consumer purchasing their product.
The problem with one of my LEDs burning out is that I don’t have confidence any of them will last. I haven’t gotten a statement from Denon saying they never overvolted the LEDs. I haven’t gotten a statement from Denon saying they use “XXX LED” to know they are doing their best to source quality components. So now that I’ve had a failure in an LED, which I argue is not at all my fault, I don’t have faith in Denon support, and I’ve lost a lot of faith I had in the equipment.
So yeah, I suppose it’s the principle. I personally expect LEDs and non-moving-parts to last the full duration of their expected lifespan, while I understand that moving parts, such as the faders and jog wheels, can fail earlier, depending on my use of them. Because I’ve kept good care of the Prime 4+, it was just outside the warranty window, and this is something I couldn’t have prevented myself, I do expect Denon to help with a fix. This is strengthened by the fact that it’s not an isolated issue, meaning it isn’t some absolute fluke of nature that caused this, but something else, and I believe Denon should have an interest in resolving this issue not only for me, but for all devices and do whatever they can to minimize these issues, which they can’t due if they simply ignore them and pass them off as “out of warranty”.
I use Deck 3 for my Samples, so I’d turn on the Prime 4+, this button would already be activated, and I’d turn it off for Channel 1 by pressing Channel 1 FX1. So, a button I almost literally never pressed, but was always on during my sets, the LED burned out. It’s completely invisible with any amount of light source.
Reads like it’s been faulty since day one and gradually got worse over time. I’ve not had many LEDs failing on stuff I own, they are usually pretty solid. One area I do see them often is car brake light strips, and more shocking it’s often Mercedes who are the culprit (with those long strips across the boot lid).
Basically. I took these pictures and video in a very dark area to try to show the issue, but with any amount of light, including lighting from SoundSwitch, this LED is completely dark and I can’t tell if it’s on or off.
Hahaha you’re not wrong Andy… as an Audi owner myself, I despise it. Ironically they tend to have the nicest indicators out there too, you just never see them.
Ah good - you’ve acknowledged that it’s not common currently.
With regard to the lifetime of an LED - you can hopefully appreciate that they vary from one type of LED to another - there are thousands upon thousands of different LEDs - what’s have you found in terms of researching the lifetime of the “Deck 1/3” LED? Have you actually got a MTBF characteristic, an advertised, published longevity rating?
With averages or “mean times” for that matter , to get an average there will be a number of the same component measured, and the average (or mean) will include SOME components in the test which lasted longer than the eventual outcome, and some which lasted less than the eventual outcome. That’s how it works.
Had this LED failed within warranty, sure I’d have expected any manufacturer to welcome the item back in for a repair under warranty. However, you’ve already mentioned that your unit is out of warranty and as such, I wouldn’t be expecting any freebies.
If you go with the “I’m never buying another product from manufacturer X because trivial this or trivial that happened” you’re going to be running out of choice pretty darn quick as you go through life. That my opinion, anyhow.
What a way to ignore everything else said to support your view. You have offered absolutely ZERO constructive conversation in this entire thread and seem set on just arguing for the sake of arguing.
Simply because the point of view of others differs from your own, does not mean that their view has any less relevance in a topic of conversation than your own.
The issue I am taking with you is your dismissal of other points of view, including the insinuation that I was expecting special treatment from InMusic or that I am incapable of zeroing in on the potential problem of my devices based on my extensive knowledge of electronics and how to program them. Then, when challenged, you double down or attempt an outright insult against the person challenging you. May I suggest you follow your own advice?
