X1800 Buzzing Problem (again)

This is getting quite ridiculous. So many people are complaining about this issue on the forum and I’m beginning to worry about my choice of switching to Denon. This looks like it will be another post about a recurring issue that, so far, hasn’t been proven that it can stay fixed.

I was playing a gig in front of 700(ish) people last year. The mixer (that was already showing signs of buzzing at home) crackled and cut out completely mid-set. The venue had another mixer on site and we plugged in the Pioneer DJM800 and finished the set (never to be booked again)!

I jumped online the next day to see a few posts about the same issue and started to worry that the choice to switch to Denon might not have been a sensible one. I contacted the place of purchase and they sent it away to have it fixed under warranty, hooray!

A couple of months later and it was back in my hands with a brand new screen and seemingly working like new. That was until this week. Sitting at home with the mixer in the studio, simply listening to a record, and the buzzing goes again!!!

Again, I jump online and see A LOT more people complaining about this issue. Things are working fine, then comes the buzz, then the audio drop out. Rumours of a ‘quick fix’ emerge. It’s as simple as screwing the grounding screws tighter or attaching a wire. The problem is, not one of the quick fix people could provide evidence that it was a long term fix. Hell, I sent mine to have it repaired and even then it stopped working again!

So what are we doing about this Denon? I have had one response on facebook to say Denon were helpful when they were told about the issue. Isn’t it time Denon actually came public about the issue and started offering some solutions, and I mean SOLUTIONS. Obviously, sending it back to be fixed under warranty is not a solution because mine (and at least one other person on here) isn’t working again!

How can I go into a gig with my x1800 wondering when I will need to pull out my dodgy backup to swap out? How can I buy a $2000aud ‘pro-mixer’ that needs a backup at every gig (and before you tell me I should always have a backup, I know. I’ve always had one but never used it until this mixer)?

I’d love to hear from Denon about this.

Thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully we can get this sorted.

You probably don’t need to see another video but here it is anyway

1 Like

Has anyone who did the wiring of the ground posts come back and said that it didn’t solve the problem permanently?

Did you get a completely different mixer when yours was ‘repaired’? If it wasn’t a completely different one, do you know what they did to it?

One person said they fixed it and it has been working for 6 months (so far). So I guess it depends on your definition of permanent. My fix lasted from November '19 until this week.

When I got mine back it came with a new screen so they have done something there but I can’t remember exactly what they said they fixed. Soundboard or PCB or something like that from memory.

Did you wire the ground posts together or are you just talking about the returned mixer that InMusic repaired?

No, I wasn’t going to take it apart. Wouldn’t that void the warranty? This is the returned mixer form the service people in Australia.

Sounds like there’s no one who’s said they’ve done the wiring of the ground posts and had that not resolve it, then. I wonder if this might be something worth doing as a precaution, because it sounds like when this issue eventually crops up that it causes something to short out and get damaged.

You said the damage actually occurred when playing a record… vinyl? Is that what happened the first time, too?

It’s probably worth a try but…

  1. It’s probably going to void the warranty

  2. This is a “professional DJ club mixer” that costs a fair amount of money with a recurring problem that Denon have never (that I can find) addressed, should it be up to the purchaser to fix the problem every time it happens?

The first time it happened I was using Serato. This time, yes it was a vinyl record.

Neither of my X1800s are still in warranty.

It actually sounds like people getting them serviced by InMusic are basically just getting the mixer back to the exact original specs, and the problem just occurs again.

Ok, so it’s not like a phono grounding issue that seems to be associated with it… assuming when you say “Serato” that you weren’t doing DVS through the X1800…

(Edit: posted by bassweight on YT

Some people will get lucky with this fix for a short time like i did, but then i dug abit deeper in to this problem. The problem is a row of 25v 100uf capacitors next to the relays on the top board with all the inputs and outputs. the capacitors are rubycon pk series and maybe denon bought a big batch of bad capacitors. You will see two relays next to the xlr outputs and some more further down the board, change the 25v 100uf capacitors next to the relays, it will stop this issue my advice is use 105c low esr 25v 100uf caps, when i measured the original capacitors they had halfed in capacitance and were around 56uf this causes the relays to chatter or vibrate causing loss of output or distortion.)

I was using the SL2 with turntables

Two repairs on the same issues,

you can actually request for the money back here.

Do you have similar protection laws

Mine started doing it this week again I’m going for the grounding fix