Sony SCD-1 or SCD-XA9000ES for stereo

I am disillusioned with Sony players. I bought my SCD-1 years ago when they first came out, and my unit developed a problem in the first few months, refusing to play anything. The in-warranty repair note said one of the servo motors had failed. Last year, it began to display "No Disc" after I had put in discs. It will eventually recognize a disc if I turn it off & on and open & close the lid several times. Quite frustrating, especially since I expected the SCD-1 to have been one of Sony's most carefully designed products. (I have also read numerous citations on Audiogon where others have had problems with SCD-1s.) On the other hand, perhaps it was never intended to last longer than the life cycle of the SACD format. I recently bought an Esoteric universal player off Audiogon; it has a reputation for a bullet-proof transport.

Well, my SCD-1 became steadily less willing to recognize discs even with my repeated use of the on/off and open/close controls, so I took it in to my local authorized Sony repair shop last month. (I was going to play a nice tune for my wife, but it took so long to get the SCD-1 to recognize the disc that she eventually left before I could get it to play. I realized that I couldn't put off a repair any longer.)

They replaced the laser head, a $190 component -- it was expensive because it was complex, with both the CD and SACD readers part of the same unit. They also replaced an oscillator crystal, which was a $20 or $30 component. This latter was because Sony had tagged the original oscillator as prone to failure at this age, so its replacement was a preventative measure. With labor and tax, my bill came to $364.

I just hope the unit keeps working another 5 years.