Sony XA 5400 ES display has gone blank x2


The lovely sounding CD player lost its display one month before going out of warranty 1.5 years ago. I sent it to the Sony service center (a 3rd party I'm told) in El, Paso Tx or some such place. Well it was fixed and warranted for another 30 or 90 days. I've had it back for a little over a year and now the display is once again dead. My dealer said to be thankful, that the unit had been faithful for 6 years and I should move on. Problem is, that's not the answer I wanted to hear. Is there such as thing as an upscale Sony repair service where some human can actually break down the repair and communicate with me to let me know if it is even economically feasible to bother?
The dealer suggested that I gambled by not having proper surge protection and obviously the display circuit was very susceptible to surges - thus getting fried not once but twice. He wants me to consider several different Richard Gray surge suppressors.
Did anyone else experience this type of failure from their Sony ES unit? Is anyone familiar with a better repair service. Is it true that my lack of surge suppression led up to this mayhem? Thanks for the input in advance.
masi61
Thanks! for the update Masi61-

it would be of interest to learn why Sony moved the operation from TX to MI? Keep me posted on your situation & Happy Listening!
I have one in perfect condition I would sell very reasonable. Since I moved to a server I have not used it for 2 years.
Apparently the service center is no longer in Laredo,TX. It is now in Michigan. The service center is outside of Detroit in Roseville, Mich. The 3rd party company is called ABL/Gibson TV. The charge to look at it is $79.99 plus shipping there and back plus whatever the price is to repair it since it is now out of warranty. The lady I spoke with on the phone sensed my skepticism about the quality of Sony repairs and tried to reassure me that they repair "some fairly high end stuff" there. She says they tell me up front every part that is broken and what is involved to fix it. I played a few CD's 2 nights ago and they sound fantastic. It is just frustrating to not have the LCD display operational since you have to guess what track you're on, how long it is or even if a CD is even loaded into the machine. Clearly if I want to keep this CD player I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get it fixed.
If I replaced it with a new model, I think I would just migrate 100% over to Bryston products thanks to their superior customer service.

I will go a ahead most likely and send it in for an estimate, but to be honest I'm thinking of just advertising it "as is" on eBay and moving onto something else.

But what about the Rechard Gray products? If I did get the CD player fixed would this provide any protection in the future?
Masi61-

the Sony repair center in Laredo TX should be consulted.
A guy named Adrian used to be the lead (master) Sony tech there.

As for the Richard Gray products, I have been using the 400 Pro model for more than 10 years now. I can very highly suggest buying one for your digital gear (tv, cable/sat box, dvd player, cd player).

Keep me posted & Happy Listening!
You have gotten more time out of it than the warranty allows for, so I can't see where Sony is at fault. A 5 year warranty is pretty generous, especially on a mass market product.

In the future, if you were to buy a CD player from an American company with a good reputation, they'll usually fix products over warranty, as long as they don't see any obvious user error or abuse. Classe (Canada), fixed my HT preamp, that was over 3 years out of warranty for free.
When they run out of reasonable excuses they always blame the customer. It is almost predictable. One would think there would be enough money in repairing these pieces but it probably gets ridiculously exorbitant pretty fast, thus the move on statement.
I would think that a SURGE would have done a lot more damage,
get in touch with Sony for repair.
No problems yet.
Why not just replace it with a new one, same model.
I see them available from time to time.