SACD/CD Drive Mechanism Replacement

No regrets. My Marantz SA10 lens gave up. It is now fix . I bought 2 extra lens for my Ruby and and my Sa10 player.If you are buying used player. Make sure you have a back up lens and tech to do it.

The players I am considering are very high-end products utilizing Esoteric VSOP drive mechanisms which are no longer being sold outside of Esoteric players.

If I were able to purchase a replacement, the manufacturer will be willing to install it, for a fee obviously, but my concern is this.... who knows how many years will go by before I would need the service and what if the manufacturer is no longer in business? 

I didn't know how complicated it would be to have some other audio technician do the installation?  

I'm not sure if the drive mechanism comes with the laser assembly, so that is a great question for me to ask.  Thank you for bringing that to my attention, glennewdick and jayctoy!

The more I keep trying to research CD/SACD players... it seems all the brands have issues with the drives, with many of them no longer being able to be serviced.  I have to admit... I'm getting cold feet about buying something used out of warranty, and I'm not willing to pay the price for these high end players new.  

I'm mainly a vinyl guy, but there are times I want to be able to listen to "new" music that isn't released on vinyl and I was hoping to find a player that will come close to my analog rig in sound.

I appreciate everyone's comments and giving me more to think about :)

Best wishes,

Don

No need to worry.  I bought an Esoteric SACD player with the VRDS NEO transport in 2008 and still use it a few times every week.   It has worked perfectly for 16+ years.  I love the player.  

To  echo GDHP, it depends upon the brand.  Check with the manufacturer before you purchase used to determine if the are supporting the model and ask what laser and transport was used, proprietary or OEM.  I had a bad experience with a Linn Unidisc 1.1. Great sounding disc player.  Linn used a proprietary laser and when it failed as all lasers eventually do, they informed me they moved onto streaming and do not support disc format players any more.  I will never buy Linn again.  When you spend multiple 5 figures on a product  you (or at least I) expect more than 10 years of support.  Check first as I recommended.   

Sounds like it is time to embrace streaming.