As part of the next firmware upgrade, could we have a soft reset included. Such as hold both TAP buttons down for 5 seconds and the machine does a reset.

With my HD2500 at the front of a 10U case, and no chance of getting to the power button, I feel it looks more than a little unprofessional to go around to the front of your rig, remove the Starcloth to enable you to unplug the mains for a moment before refitting the plug and making good your rig.

I have cured this with a simple idea. I have drilled a small hole suitable to push a biro through on the side of my flightcase level with the power switch, enabling a simple re-start if needed.

hope it helps.

Gary told me of this 'mod' Andy, but to be honest it wouldn't take too much effort for Denon to include it as part of a firmware upgrade.

And I dont really like paying £100+ for a Gator case and then start drilling holes into it counter-act a poor design feature.

I've seen a couple of solutions to this, in the meantime, such as the "pencil hole", a flightcase mounted on/off switch and even a maplins remote control mains socket etc.

However, theres a good chance that with a few of the inclusions (and some great extras ) on the next firmware release, you wont need to do any sort of reset anyway - although a soft reset is an idea which I know was being looked into.

The risk with button-combo resets, such as ye ol' CTRL ALT DEL for when a PC decides to throw a wobbler, is to ensure that no one is likely to use that combo in their DJing routine, and, if that isn't possible then to add a delay system to the buttons eg: Hold down both TAPS for 5 seconds.

But then, theres also the fun of that 5 seconds feeling like 5 hours in some theorhectical situations.

Stop teasing! Give us a clue/s!

Why on earth would you need to do a reset.... they don't lock up ....or do they ???

I was toying with the idea of ditching my cortex and buying one........ but I really dont like some of the things I am hearing. Having said that the cortex suffered from a few teething problems, but since the last 2 updates it has been flawless......... never locked up tho'

Think I may just wait until all the bugs are ironed out

Why dont Denon put an on off switch on the front pannel like the cortex unit... Sounds like a very bad design feature to me... But as Wizard says does this mean they crash and have to be re-booted???

Surely not lol

Nik

can you not just unplug it from the socket for a second? surely its in reach not too far away?

But for those who read and wonder............Please dont let these "minor" details fool you or put you off folkes

These players are brill....The D2 is exactly what I personally wanted from a user point of view

As is the Denon to many others, others that want more functions and gizmo's would be better with the Denon.

But for digital playback devices...these babys are great. They are reliable (gigged 4 times now with the D2....spot on, no problems at all) and do exactly what you want them too. (and more with the Denon! haha)

But as stated on previous threads, i think some people jump on the bandwagon a little bit sometimes, and love to hate these units.

Dont forget the units are all upgradeable with firmware, and its likely the firmware will tackle some of the minor issues stated in these threads.
However, as the units stand right now....still worth every penny IMO

Why indeed? In many cases, PC software would be the main reason, and not just on the Denon.

MP3 files can be said to have 3 main sections - the big musical data section, the ID3 tags (just a bit of text really) and the all-important file header. The file header contains the data which tells the playback device all sorts of info about the MP3 file itself. If this vitally important part of the mp3 becomes corrupt, then the file can produce unexpected results on the playback device.

Just on the Denon? No, of course not, it's been going on for years and years.

Have a look at how many MP3 header repair utilities have been around for years and years. Google info

And what causes corrupt file headers? Whilst its possible for any file on any storage medium to become corrupt for all the usual static electricity, and drop-out type issues on any storage medium eg: hard disc, cd-rom errors etc, the main culprit for corrupt mp3 file header info is PC programs.

Any PC program which you point at your music file (say a music CD, or a track on your hard drive) and you let that program manipulate and save the file, has to (re)calculate and save the file, together with the file header. If the PC software gets the calculations wrong, the header can become corrupt.

For example: Lets say that you rip a CD to hard drive with Program 1 and save the file, you then point program 2 at the file which program 1 created and program 2 removes any beginning and ending silent bits from (tops'n'tails) the track and saves it. Next you point program 3 at the file(s) to normalize them all to the same volume levels and re-save each track. Finally, you point program 4 at all the tracks, to tag and/or rename some of the tags, and this re-saves the files again.

Perhaps the 4 steps mentioned above are more than some people put their tracks through, but at the NADJ show the other week, I was talking to a guy whos upgraded to a 2500 and has previously processed all the files on his existing external drives with 6 programs in total - the 4 above, and 2 additional programs/steps - 1 program which allows him to adjust the equalisation, and another program which removes clicks and pops and rumble from tracks which he's loaded in from vinyl and cassette tapes - obviously he doesnt run this last "clean-up" program on CD ripped files.

Using a program to automatically calculate and add the bpm to a tracks header is another step.

Now perhaps its all too easy to say that avoiding having your mp3s saved with corrupt file headers is as easy as avoiding cheap or free music software, but even the well-known Exact Audio Copy used to corrupt headers when used with the LAME VBR encoder - so even the big name software houses can accidently turn decent file headers into corrupt ones, causing unexpected behaviour on many hardware or software based players.

Errrrrrrr

Thanks Gary .... I think

Has anyone ever had a denon lock up tho ???

I have had the cortex now for approx 5 months and it has been gigged for about 200 hours with no lockups. I was thinking of changing to a denon. But if their are reports of lockups I will wait till it is sorted ..... however if the lockups are caused purely by bad mp3's the I suppose it isn't a denon fault....except maybe it should fail more gracefully. i.e. just not load the file or something.

Oh and don't get me wrong I am not bashing these units at all.... they are certainly the future of Dj'ing be it denon, cortex, Newmark..... and I am sure Skytronic eventually.

I've spoken to some users who have had a corrupt mp3 and its stopped that side of the 2500, for the header length of the track etc. But those same users have then (maybe a few days later) run their mp3s through an mp3 file header repair program, and the files then behave themselves and allow the playback devices to behave smoothly also. As for the DN-HD2500 being more tollerant of such files, thats something which can be addressed by a free firmware update - obviously this forum will be the first UK forum to be made aware of the firmware updates as they are made available - the forthcoming one will be like "Christmas come early".

Should have know the PC would cop for it... I have used PC and laptop for many years and had no problems with playing MP3 now these units hit the market and with in days there are problems with some mp3 due to PCs wow amazing that....

Nik

Yawn!

Nik has a point though;

Other players don't seem to have an issue with so-called 'corrupt' files, but we've had this discussion before, so had better not launch any further into it now.

Not had to re-set mine.

I think what Gary is saying is:

We all minipulate our mp3's in one way or another

I personally have thrown my mp3's through programs to increase performance or "chop" "save" "edit" "mp3gain" whatever.......the PC is extremely good at this stuff.............However when mp3's are sent to the denon, or any other controller....they sometimes may have file errors that the unit will "pick-up"and possibly cause it to freeze perhaps if a corrupt file is present

Not suggesting this happens all the time or should happen at all, I m just saying that its a possibility because of the data changes the PC has made to the mp3 in question.

This is not for one second blaming the PC at all........its just done its job as asked, however the units may see changes to the files that a PC and its software will allow perhaps?

As gary said, the firmware updates will make sure that the tollerance level will be higher very soon

However I must add...... I dont think many people suffer this problem to what ive been reading so far?

Out of the thousands who have bought the Denon and other units like D2 (like myself) I have had no trouble what so ever with my files and the vast majority with these units haven't either.

Yes Ive got my grumbles....like no master tempo on the D2 and no auto fade either....but in general the unit is great!

I also run a sony vaio top of the range.....froze on me the other night because of a software/file error

Only happens every blue moon, but does happen, and can happen to anybody....just like these units can.

So why does it happen?

seems gary has answered this question

This feature has now been added to the Denon DN-HD2500. Holding down 4 specific buttons for around 3 seconds will reset the unit as if the power had been turned off, then on. More details cant be found in the upgrade thread and instructions.

Good news . I did the firmware upgrade last week, but haven't needed to use the soft reset yet.