I’m not sure what you are saying you’re experiencing when you turn motor on and off and pitch bend or change layers, though.
The procedure that I posted was pretty clear. It’s repeatable everytime for me.
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I load a track and I press play with the motor on and do a couple baby scratches. Everything normal.
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Turn the motor off and pitch bend the track back and forth. Works normally.
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While the track is still playing (and it should be still playing the whole time) turn the motor on. This is where I spot the first anomaly. When the motor tuns on the software thinks I want to pitch bend.
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While the motor is still on (with track still playing, no layer change) scratch. Works normally.
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Turn the motor off once more and pitch bend with the platter again. (Oh when I turn the motor off it thinks I want to pitch bend down) This is where I spot my second anomaly. The pitch bending on the platter does not respond.
Now the first anomaly might be linked to what the op and others are describing. I believe what they are saying so I’m testing to verify it and this is what I see so far.
Pretty sure this is a known issue. Laidback Luke did an “In My Mind” video using 3 SC5000M players and two of them had the random BPM fluctuation issue.
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It’s been discussed on this forum for two months prior to that.
His recent issues are possibly different from some of the others, as if in his case the platter were being dragged along the edge rather than speeding up dramatically as in mine. However, he had the pitch in the positive only slightly when it occurred, while I’ve experienced this exclusively (that I noticed) in substantial negative pitch. I do tend to go in the negative pitch a lot (partly because that’s a unique strength of Elastique v3), so this might just be a result of where the two of us are in the pitch rather than anything else.
His position of the players most vulnerable to this problem is consistent with my experience, though. The right side of the Ms might be more susceptible to heat than the left side of them, and if it’s a heat issue you’re obviously more likely to have issues with the players that are adjacent to the mixer that’s generating heat. Thus, the left deck closest to my hot Mackie mixer was also the most frequently doing weird speed things. He has his decks right up against the otherwise relatively cool X1800 with not much air gap.
I want to update my findings on anomaly #2.
I found that after turning the motor off pitch bend will engage only after the platter comes to a complete stop. That means after you press the button you will have to wait by looking, which is actually the right thing to do.
The first one however I was unable to recreate today. I was doing it at will last time lol.
I would like to test your hypothesis because if you are correct then I would have to decide on a proper case for my deck. Can you give me some parameters? My deck has been running 2hrs non-stop and I all I feel is that they are warm. The most warmth I feel is from the front USB port.
If it is a heat issue, I suspect it would have been just originally tested by itself and not adjacent other hot gear. Past a certain point, the fans turn on. The trouble might be the range between when components are getting too hot but the fan hasn’t turned on yet.
I just saw the other thread you mentioned I’m going through it right now.
When I first turn on my deck I hear this kinda warm up noise. I noticed that if I just leave the player on once and a while that warm up sound kicks in. I wonder if this is happening while playing tracks, could be something maybe?
Possibly a fan.
“Possibly a fan”. Now we’re getting somewhere. Is it possible that maybe that when the “fan” kicks in during play it might cause the effect that is being described? You mentioned heat issues.
There was a period in my life when I was heavily into controller programming. It’s a bs task and takes a lot of work. I see analogs of troubleshooting mappings where people are talking about bugs.
An example would be,
You worked hard on your controller mapping and are satisfied that it meets your workflow perfectly. You decide to upload and share the mapping. Then you get back bug reports from users and the first thing you think is, only if they used it as I intended, but instead you find that certain combinations of your mapping causes issues. (sounds familliar)
A lot of the issues I see are 3rd, 4th order controller programming. Modelling of dynamics will take a while but feedback helps the programmer model better.
So Denon support got back to me. They suggested that it “sounds like the platter is registering some unwanted message that’s affecting the speed. Plastic and/or bad ground are the common reasons for this”
My kit is powered via an APC SurgeArrest socket, so I would have expected the ground to be sorted?
I don’t have a clue what they meant when they claimed that plastic was affecting the unit.
Anyway, I’ve bounced this back to them.
The M has no grounding integrity to worry about with the platter.
It’s a physical change of the platter speed, not some detection problem. The motor is malfunctioning and the platter speed detection is working properly. This is not reflected on-screen. Go to the original thread and look at my video. You can see it.
The issue does not appear to occur, as far as I can tell, when the fan is on. It seems to occur when the units are getting warm but the fan hasn’t kicked in yet. There might be a non-programmed physical temperature sensor that has some variation when it triggers the fan from unit to unit, but it might also not be working soon enough in general. As I said, the right side of the units appear to be slightly more prone to the heating than the left side. It’s a complicated issue so it’s hard to say for certain, though.
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I went through your other thread. It seems like like 1.2.2 resolved it for you?
Option-D
The first part of that statement I can believe (sounds 4th order to me) but the causes for it I don’t.
So far I’ve been unable to reproduce the bad behaviour but I was able to recreate my first anomaly today. It happens in high torque mode.
I don’t know what you mean by 4th order.
1.2.2 did not resolve it.
In controller mapping 4th order is basically mopping up certain things. Order 1 is to make everything to a specified workflow, and we all know everybody wants their own workflow other than the specified right? Keep in mind that I’m only saying this an analog because it looks simmilar. I have no clue about what goes into controlling the motor or mapping it. All I know that there is a good amount of work that goes in to making all the buttons, knobs, lights, etc… work together with out a hitch. Not everything can be anticipated.
I put the player on 90deg angles back and forth, side to side with the platter spinning and it played like normal.
I do have a feeling I’ll eventually encounter what you described, just I hope not at a bad time.
Again another post that has dragged on with little or no real response from Denons team, they are for sure aware as any owner who uses their Ms enough will experience this, I dont believe it is a ground issue, my set up is well earthed and surge protected to match as it is with any caring owner.
that aside I really do love these decks/controllers. They make me so happy to mix with.
owning the M`s I never turn vinyl mode off ever, so my experience is based on normally having the speed up as I first start the track I am queuing in, so I normal catch the speed up before dropping a track and only once have I been caught out dropping a track without first checking it is pitched in.
In no way am I disputing others experiences of this speed up issue, and maybe some are due to different reasons but HEY Denon…look into it…please
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Yeah, I second that. The M’s are a class piece of kit but this needs fixing. I’ve not managed a mix yet without some kind of speed change. I believe I have eliminated all the possible user errors! 'Bout time Denon staff chimed in on here and let us know what they’re doing about it.
Unless you’re planning on emailing your 5000M across the internet, you’re better off forgetting the mouse n keyboard and giving your locall denon service department a proper call. A quick 2 way phone call could get a lot more of a question and answer session progressed far quicker rather than someone st Denon forum posting a thing for you to try, you trying it the day after and posting back about how it went, waiting for a forum response , trying the next thing suggested, back and forth, back and forth.
Yes. I have the exact same problem (playing AIFF’s only) on my SC5000’s (no M) and it is driving me nuts. Why can’t these players just to the very, very basics right. 
Thank you for this post.
@Reticuli. This might be good news suggesting that it’s likely something else other than the motor.
Just so you guys know Denon responded about this issue in Reticuli’s thread. Not with any straight answer though.
It’s literally the motor speeding up, though.