Old but good CD player, repair or replace.
Old but good CD player, repair or replace.
Author
Discussion

rswift

Original Poster:

1,181 posts

198 months

Thursday 13th September 2012
quotequote all
So,

Most of my Hi-Fi gear has been unused for a few years, during house renovations, it's all old but was good in it's day. I used to work in a Hi Fi shop, so got a healthy discount & first option on p/x's !

My CD player is an old Marantz CD85, great in it's day ... now it just lights up, transport works but no audio. I have option of repair, and possibly Modification, or buy a newer machine. It's a long time since I've read the Hi-Fi Hype comics, I have no idea whats good bad or indifferent these days.

If I go down the repair route ... which is a favoured option, I have no idea who would repair this sort of stuff now ?

I don't wish to spend a fortune, in fact as little as possible, as in my forties I don't appear to have as much time or money to dedicate to the Hi-Fi that I did in my twenties !

The rest of the system is Quad (34/405 Amp & ESL63 Speakers).

Any-one have any ideas,

Thank you

BlueMR2

9,261 posts

225 months

Thursday 13th September 2012
quotequote all
Might be worth having a look what they are worth on ebay or similar to give you an idea of what another would cost and weigh it up against the cost to repair.

You can always keep the broken one and repair it in future if you want.

chazola

459 posts

180 months

Friday 14th September 2012
quotequote all
I'm a big fan of vintage hi-fi and how they sound, it looks like the CD85 is one of the higher end models like the sought-after CD94 which still go for a lot of money. I'd repair it's not going to cost silly money. Most repair places should do you a fault find and quote for around £20-30.

Laurel Green

31,007 posts

255 months

Friday 14th September 2012
quotequote all
I'd go for the repair option too - a lovely player of those spiny things!

OldSkoolRS

7,080 posts

202 months

Friday 14th September 2012
quotequote all
Might be worth a look on AVForum's classifieds or HiFi Wigwam (if they are still going, I bought my Arcam CD player off there a few years ago).

http://www.avforums.com/forums/home-cinema-hi-fi-c...

Might be cheaper than a repair (if it's even possible given that few places will do board level repairs these days as they just want to swap out parts. wink ). Might even get an upgrade depending on your luck.

Nice system BTW, always fancied some ELS63 speakers, but never had the space to get the best out of them.

jet_noise

5,995 posts

205 months

Saturday 15th September 2012
quotequote all
Dear LG,

Laurel Green said:
I'd go for the repair option too - a lovely player of those spiny things!
You listen to hedgehogs?
smile
regards,
Jet

drab

422 posts

175 months

Sunday 16th September 2012
quotequote all
Lovely CD player!

The transport mechanism is a classic. If it's still spinning and looks like it's working then it shouldn't be too hard to find the fault. Have you tried measuring the voltage across the outputs?

If the digital output is still working you could try using it with a modern DAC too.

Don't spend too much money on it though, once that transport goes it's game over unless you find donor units...

Edited by drab on Sunday 16th September 12:24