Review on Denon Receiver Streaming Compatibility Bluetooth by Tyler Owens

I bought this unit a year ago for my elderly music loving father along with some great Monitor Audio bookshelf speakers. Despite the disparate playback capabilities of this unit (inputs and network), my single goal was to provide decent stereo performance to two speakers with custom music I loaded onto USB keyfobs to play through the front USB input. I successfully own and operate high quality Denon gear that is over 30 years old which is why I chose the premium price. Initially, the device worked flawlessly and played all the mp3 and wav files that I had loaded on almost every USB stick. After a few months and after downloading a firmware update, USB playback became almost impossible without doing a lot of reconfiguration of the device setup functions. Since he couldn't do it on his own, my father kept calling me "come and fix my music". I've read all the troubleshooting posts I could find, changed brands of USB sticks, reformatted them to Apple and Windows formats, incl (Denon recommend) FAT. I only uploaded compatible/recognized file formats and did not exceed the number of root folders and files. I even did a hard reset of the entire device. All efforts to ensure smooth playback from USB failed. If I fiddle with the device settings long enough I might still have luck getting it to play, but it's usually a 5-15 minute trial. My repair efforts have now stretched over 3 weeks after 1 year of manufacture. So I'm guaranteed deep fried (shame on me). WARNING: Based on my limited experience of using it and the experience of other users whose use was much broader, this device is "GROUP". Unfortunately for my dad and I, this device has now become a $500 anchor for paperweights! BEWARE!