I don't know, I've done a ton as well. I've NEVER gotten play to turn them on. I've always gotten power on to work reliably but did have to screw around with it once for a while. It's our default player, and in fact I just ran back and plugged one in to double check...play definately doesn't turn it on, at least not with the OE remote.

wow!!!
must be a bad one, i use play on all 4001's, and i use them all the time

early shipments of DV6001 and DV4001 had problems with the discrete power commands and the PLAY commend did not turn the units ON. To fix this it required a firmware update from Marantz to get them to work correctly. I would contact Marantz to see if any of units you are using fall within these early serial numbers.