How old is too old?


I'm not having any issues at the moment, but I'm thinking I will have to buy 1 more sacd player before I check out. I almost always buy used. So my question how old is too old? I see some interesting things that I would love to have, but many are 10 to 20+ years old. Thoughts?

secretguy

I think I will just cross the bridge when I come to it. My current Marantz is doing fine. Unless some deal comes along that is too good to pass,

As for streaming...not now...not ever.

Purchase a used SONY SACD from eBay or AGon and be done with it. If you like its performance, then try to get a spare. 

I don't often post but as a repair guy who tries to work on many things I own, I have noticed a few trends. CD/Optical drives in general probably have aged the least well. The laser diodes get weak and out of spec it seems. I also have a lot of tape decks that also need maintenance but many of those parts can still be sourced. I probably have at least 30 different CD/DVD/SACD players. Usually the lasers wear out and are difficult to find. You used to be able to buy them until all the stock dried up. For example, of the many I have, one is a Denon DCD-3560. It has a new laser in it. I also bought a spare 3560 NOS laser for a lot of money to have on hand just in case. I also have the very first CD player, a pair Sony CDP-101 players still working after 40 years. My Pioneer Elite players are still working as well. I went ahead and bought an Oppo BDP-105D too. I have so many optical players, I will likely never be without one. I listen to several analog and digital formats. I feel I am covered having so many players, a DAC+my own file server content and-or streamers. I would say if anyone plans on buying an old used CD/SACD/DVD player, see if laser heads are still available and buy 1 or 2 spares with your choice player.

I had a Marantz SA7 S1 SACD/CD player that was excellent... until the mechanical drive quit.  Nobody wanted to fix it... not sure any parts were available.  The new version of the Marantz SA10 series was about $14K as I recall.  Just too expensive as I stream Qobuz and Tidal with Roon using a dCS Bartok.  But, how to play my SACD collection?  I decided on a new Marantz 30N.  It will play my CDs as a turntable outputting to the Bartok by 75 Ohm cable.  With the Bartok as a DAC I have excellent sound.  But of course, no SACD output.  But SACD digital conversion is much easier and less complicated process than PCM. And the Japanese folks put good SACD DACs in their stuff so I just let the Marantz do the work for those disks with excellent sounding results into my analog preamp.  A reasonable compromise to money and sound but not much of one, if any, to  sound quality.

Come on man ,you should know that buying used audio equipment is a crazy shoot....I know it after getting burned a number of times...