Yeah, I had a similar problem with my SA12-S1. Worked great for eight months new. Now I'm having the board replaced to the tune of $500. I think the build quality of these players is a big problem after awhile. I would have it sent in to Marantz for repairs. |
Dear Ecruz
My response is to send it back to Marantz and have it repaired under warranty. If the warranty period is over my advice is to purchase the Sony N999ES SACD player and have it modded by Dan Wright of Modwright. I originally purchased the Marantz 8260 and the sound was so awful that it is now in my basement. It really sounds better there. By the way, the Sony retails for $1000.00 and then you can mod it when you have the funds to do so. |
Interesting that you mention the Sony. I just bought a Sony DVP-NS900V SACD/CD/DVD player on a recommendation from Paul at TRL. He says the modded Sony will "blow away" the Marantz. Even a modded Marantz.
I know the ModWright mods are more expensive than the TRL mods, but they've both received very good reviews. Does anyone know what the differences really are?
Still, I want the Marantz to function properly, for use as a back up or to sell, if I decide to go that route.
E- |
clean it using cleanning cd, you know, something like maxell. then it should be better |
Actually, it seems to have fixed itself. Someone in another forum posted that leaving it on all the time made theirs worse. So I turned mine off for a day and now it's fine. Go figure. Plus the discs that I was having the problem with were fairly scratched up. But I had played them many times before with no issue.
Anyway, seems to be fine now. |
Well, it may have fixed your problem but my player does sound dramtically better when left on. Turning it on and off makes for a mighty long warm up period. Hopefully this is not the case for your player..
Chris |
I've heard NOT to use those cleaning CD's. The article I read said they may knok the laser out of alignment. Has anyone experienced that? |
I know people who use cleaning cds on 8260 without problems. if the cleaning CD will send the laser out of allignment, what would happen to this unit during shipment? |
I bought a Maxell CD lens cleaner yesterday. But I don't know if I need to use it. The player seems to be working perfectly now, even when I leave it on. I'm perplexed by this whole thing.
I want to get the Sony modded and give it a try. But the wife isn't going to let me keep two players and I'd hate to sell the Marantz and have the next person have trouble. I may send it in to Marantz, just to get a clean bill of health before selling it. |
send it. they may upgrade software or whatever it is they do, to bring it up to date |
This has to be the world's worst CD player in terms of reliability. My unit failed after about a year due to read error, and then it failed three months later with severe distortion and possibly a DC offset (my amplifier goes into protection mode whenever the Marantz is used as a source component). Marantz customer service is awful and will not respond to repeated phone calls. Anyone buying this unit (or possibly any Marantz unit) should proceed with extreme caution. |
I too have an 8260. It works...sort of. I bought is second hand from a fellow A'gon member. It never had a problem...until I stuck in MFSL Patricia Barber...Then it was as if this disc unleashed all the ERROR demons from the player. I let a friend use the same disc. He bought his brandy new and never had a problem..until he played that very same CD. Now, his player is in worse shape than mine.
Mine only chokes occasionally now. Very strange. I can live with it for now, I think it sounds incredible and works for me, but eventually I want to move on. Ill keep the player and have some fun doing my own mods.Warranty is toast unless I try to go thru orignal owner, which may work.
About the DC offset:
Despite the large series output capacitor, the 8260 has a mute circuit after the cap. Therefore, if something were to go horribly wrong with the mute circuit it may be possible that the Dc signal used to control the BASE of the muting transistor finds its way to the EMITTER, of which is in parallel with the output. THis means that the output after the cap will carry DC; but the HDAM stages before the cap are 'protected' from seeing this DC fault.
It is very unlikely that a transistor fail in this way, and even more unlikely that it failed on both chanels.
If you have a voltmeter, probe the center rca pin out. It should read very low dc-offset. This offset can only come from the muting circuit.
You can also try using the rear L/R as an experiment, and play SACDS in multi mode. If the condtion goes away your on to something.
I hate the reliability of the 1000.00 player. Marantz technical management ought to be ashamed they went to the market with such a dubious design;
But, I can only guess that Marantz's possibly Dilbert style upper management has the final word. |
strange how these 8260 players are so unreliable. I had a Marantz 5-disc cd changer that I paid $400 for in 1997. I stopped using it about a year ago. I gave it to my friend. And it still works. This thing hasn't had a single problem since 1997.
I demoed 8260 and a slow read times and all kinds of disc errors prevented me from buying it. At the same time I had an 8260 in my system I also borrowed Arcam CD-73T from the dealer. I thought CD-73T sounded identical to SA8260. But it costs several hundred $ less.
A combo of Sony DVP-S7700 used as a transport into Bel Canto DAC2 that I later ended up buying clearly beat out the 8260 even when the Marantz was playing SACD. So aside from the fact that its unreliable, I didn't find it to be particularly good sounding either.
Not trying to rain on anyone's parade here, but just my observation that the SA8260 is not the most successful Marantz piece ever made both sonically and functionally. |
marantz sa 8260 -
bought this unit here on audiogon before i became educated on its predilection for problems.
when i first started haveing problems i called the seller and he said buy a cleaner cd and let it clean the unit. cleaner cd doesnt cure its ailments.
it wont play some cds, it stays stuck at #1 track - dead in the water, it frequently skips, skips and stops - so many differnt cds that it sits unused at present.
marantz.com suggests sending it to www.servicewidetech.com
servicewide phone answerer(not a tech) states repair may be around $100 to $200. the actual estimate would be determined when the service tech sees it. there is $50 charge if you decide not to repair. shipping costs additional.
i was not allowed to speak to a servicetech at servicewidetech ("they dont have time to talk on the phone")to get a feel for what degree of attentiveness they give these marantz'.
i see many 'factory refurbised' sa 8260's on ebay for $649 + $27 shipping.... . hhhmmmm
not sure what to do. if i had instructions on typical unit defect repair i would do it myself if i could.
so on my current budget it looks like risk marantz repair or find a new player for about the same as the cost of marantz repair !!!
sorry if this is a little whinney..
but i had to get it out. i feel better now.
paul (florida) |
You know what's the funniest thing about this all, how you people going to sell these players with all this bad press? |
I bought one the middle of last year hoping the issues would be fixed. Brand new problems out of the box. Very slow read times and disc errors galore. I just bought a new transport and stayed with Sony ES as Marantz gives me the willies now. I never knew what would play and what wouldn't.
The sound quality was excellent but I will not buy another Marantz player maybe ever. I had the 63 from the mid 90's but it took a few years to die. As much as I don't like Sony the company I've never had problems even with the inexpensive players of theirs I've used over the last 2 decades.
In my opinion after this many years of production my respect for Marantz is now pretty nil, at least for the latest products. Ones made in the 70's were very good indeed. |
My 8260 started refusing to read certain SACD's, then a few more, then almost all SACD's failed.
I sent it back to Marantz and they replaced the laser and tracking mechanism.
Problem solved. |
