Sez you!

Let's say there is a short in one of the audio/video cables.

Right now, I have a bunch of cables connected to the inputs, and monitor outputs going to a plasma's component and composite inputs.

NO CABLES ARE CONNECTED TO THE ZONE 2 OUTS. NO SPEAKER WIRES ARE CONNECTED TO THE ZONE 2 AMP CONNECTORS, and that amp is switched away from Zone 2 use anyway.

Why would a short in a main zone cable keep Zone 2 from turning on?

Now, I'm going to be removing video cables and testing this, but I still wonder why.

Beats me, must be a common logic circuit of some kind. When I had this problem, I only found the bad cable by accident by pushing the whole receiver back into the cabinet it was installed into. Every time I pushed it in, everything shut down. This was caused by a little piece of coax braid making contact with the center conductor of the defective video out cable. If this is not your problem, then I am sorry in advance for your dilemma.


I am really not in the mood these days to install products that were not purchased from my company, more often than not I end up getting stuck with some piece of junk that never works right and then you get the old “well it worked before you touched it routine” Its just not worth the grief.

Good luck with your adventure!

dude absolutely listen to primo. Denon, Yamaha, pioneer elite and all the others don't want this abuse. I never put more than two pair on this way and require the customer to use spk selector also. I did have a 3802 and a 3803 do the same thing to me with only one pair on zone 2. i replaced the unit, in this case they did not buy from you, and that solved may problem. both times we were told that it was loose internal wiring.

I talked with a person at Denon this morning. She told me that there should be no problem running six pairs of speakers, but she also said that most of their amps will have problems with very low impedances at very low frequencies. I told her about the Zobel that I built to stabilize the load to no less than 10 ohms below 40 Hz, and she thought that was a good idea. Had never heard of it.

She says too high an input level can cause the Zone 2 not to turn on. Or a cable problem, and she was candid that she has seen some pretty weird problems.

She told me to manually switch Zone 2 to a disconnected input and try again. If that does not work, to reset the receiver -- there is a kind of three-finered salute that you can do with the unit.

I'll let you know.

Check the answer I just gave at IP

Wideband amp saturating autoformers = protection circuit kicking on.

Where would I find this answer?

Right here at remotecentral.com!

However, for the autotransformers to become saturated, one would have to apply a voltage to them. I think this fact got buried, but I repeated it on the first page of these posts: nothing is connected to the power amp. Therefore no voltage can go to any autotransformers to saturate them.

This is a Microsoft Help type of answer: technically correct but useless.

Any chance all this stuff is mounted in a metal rack? Maybe I missed it but what amp did you replace it with? Either way it sounds to me like the Denon is NFG. Either it has a major defect for the start or you gave it one.

The thing is bad.

The lady at Denon suggested that too high of a level on an input could keep the thing from coming on, so I switched it away from used inputs. Still did not come on.


It has a system reset. I did that numerous times, being sure that Zone 2 had no signal going into it before turning it on. Did not come on.

I disconnected every cable going out of the receiver to any chassis more than three feet away. I did not disconnect the speaker leads, though; they go 60 feet to the room the plasma is in. Still did not come on.

The lady at plasma said it was bad.

BAD Denon ! ! !

Thanks for all the interesting answers. I think we should all keep in mind that many of you have seen some really weird and tweaky problems with Denon receivers, and the people at Denon are aware of this. I have never heard of this sort of tweakiness with Yamaha or Rotel, and there are probably other stable brands that I simply have not used yet. Denon's engineering department should be told that their products are not good enough for professional installers to use. They would be okay for amateurs, who will be just as irritated as us, but who won't actually lose income over their tweakiness.


We will get it service and then just hope.

Hey ernie...

I dont know who this woman at denon is that is giving you advice to overload zone 2 on their amps with 6 pairs...

but she would not be doing denon any favors by giving that advice at all...

the manual says only 1 pair should be driven off Z2 and that is what you should use...

now if you or the customer are too cheap to go out and buy an 80 watt amp for 250bucks then dont dog denon for building a bad amp...

all I use is denon for their simplicity of use,look and sound...

Ive only had one amp in fifty go bad....and that amp wint bad out of the box...

Next time design a better system and dont let the customer buy his own equipment...

let him install it...that cheap bastard...


anyhow thats my Z2 cents...


primo