Setup: Grade F
First off let’s get one thing straight this does not come with no “two speakers” like in the picture you have to spend $200 more for those and I expect you probably have to screw them together like some IKEA project with hex bolts and everything.
I bought this for Jason for Christmas and you want to know why?
You can look on the Amazon webpage and see exactly the reason despite the admission that I ended up buying this from Crutchfield which has the same sales claims…
Supports Apple AirPlay allowing streaming of music files directly from iTunes music libraries located on Mac, PC, iPod Touch and iPhone.
This implies in my consumer driven mind that “out of the box” this doohickey will do exactly what is claimed on the webpages that sells you the said doohickey.
What they forget to tell you during their sales pitch is…
You have to setup the networking. OK that’s a given these days for wi-fi crap sure no problem
You have to then read a separate manual explaining how to download the software using this doohickey to get it to do the Apple AirPlay trick. HUH?
So… Jason spent a half hour getting the thing to network and then another half hour reading through the company website to find out three pieces of information.
The serial number. OK, that’s easy that is usually on a sticker on the bottom of the device.
The Upgrade ID??? Um, that was finally found somewhere on the side of the device on another little hard to see sticker. What, is upgrading a Denon device made by Denon to be intentionally upgraded an exclusive freaking club? Denon can not make products that tell their own servers what model they are and what version they are?
The Mac address??? For a fucking receiver? Really! No where to be found on any of the labels they slapped on this stupid thing (Which they totally could stick the dang thing on one of the labels if they wanted to make this process easier because the Mac address is hard coded into the device during manufacture.) instead you had to key into five separate screens on the little front panel to find this information.
Then it took 20 minutes to download the new firmware update from Denon alone.
It then took another twenty minutes to download the god damned software to use the Apple AirPlay capability proudly proclaimed on every fucking website selling this Denon piece of crap. I am mad by this point.
FUCK YOU DENON! I do not care how well this thing works anymore this is not consumer friendly. This is not something I would hand my parents or my friends and say Merry Christmas.
This is like Adobe selling you a copy of Photoshop and then making you use a hard to read book to physically type in the C++ code and then making the customer compile and troubleshoot and add the DRM himself to get a usable installation without once mentioning any of this shit on their website.
This is not what you are selling in your advertisements. If I were Apple I would pull any hope of you ever using their license for AirPlay ever again. You Denon, yes you, are making this “using Apple AirPlay” seem harder than it ever needed to be.
Folks the fact is sitting right in front of me this very moment that Denon sells poorly thought out hard to use crap that in no way functions as advertised for way too much money. I spent $600 dollars for what is basically a esoteric information easter egg hunt and then jump through a bunch of hoops for this expensive ”do it yourself” hobby kit that was priced and sold to me as supposedly consumer level electronics. My Onkyo THX HTIB came with all 7 surround sound speakers included and a multitude of connections and an astronomical amount of settings and was priced only a couple of hundred dollars more than this little gadget here and the setup was faster and far more easier to understand.
I just hope this thing actually works for Jason or I will be getting my money back and trying that Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air that is the exact same price uses Apple AirPlay out of the box and comes with built in speakers.
Tags: That's Not eBooks
