Marantz 8260 CD/SACD

send it. they may upgrade software or whatever it is they do, to bring it up to date

This has to be the world's worst CD player in terms of reliability. My unit failed after about a year due to read error, and then it failed three months later with severe distortion and possibly a DC offset (my amplifier goes into protection mode whenever the Marantz is used as a source component). Marantz customer service is awful and will not respond to repeated phone calls. Anyone buying this unit (or possibly any Marantz unit) should proceed with extreme caution.

I too have an 8260. It works...sort of. I bought is second hand from a fellow A'gon member. It never had a problem...until I stuck in MFSL Patricia Barber...Then it was as if this disc unleashed all the ERROR demons from the player. I let a friend use the same disc. He bought his brandy new and never had a problem..until he played that very same CD. Now, his player is in worse shape than mine.
Mine only chokes occasionally now. Very strange. I can live with it for now, I think it sounds incredible and works for me, but eventually I want to move on. Ill keep the player and have some fun doing my own mods.Warranty is toast unless I try to go thru orignal owner, which may work.

About the DC offset:
Despite the large series output capacitor, the 8260 has a mute circuit after the cap. Therefore, if something were to go horribly wrong with the mute circuit it may be possible that the Dc signal used to control the BASE of the muting transistor finds its way to the EMITTER, of which is in parallel with the output. THis means that the output after the cap will carry DC; but the HDAM stages before the cap are 'protected' from seeing this DC fault.
It is very unlikely that a transistor fail in this way, and even more unlikely that it failed on both chanels.

If you have a voltmeter, probe the center rca pin out. It should read very low dc-offset. This offset can only come from the muting circuit.

You can also try using the rear L/R as an experiment, and play SACDS in multi mode. If the condtion goes away your on to something.

I hate the reliability of the 1000.00 player. Marantz technical management ought to be ashamed they went to the market with such a dubious design;

But, I can only guess that Marantz's possibly Dilbert style upper management has the final word.

strange how these 8260 players are so unreliable. I had a Marantz 5-disc cd changer that I paid $400 for in 1997. I stopped using it about a year ago. I gave it to my friend. And it still works. This thing hasn't had a single problem since 1997.

I demoed 8260 and a slow read times and all kinds of disc errors prevented me from buying it. At the same time I had an 8260 in my system I also borrowed Arcam CD-73T from the dealer. I thought CD-73T sounded identical to SA8260. But it costs several hundred $ less.

A combo of Sony DVP-S7700 used as a transport into Bel Canto DAC2 that I later ended up buying clearly beat out the 8260 even when the Marantz was playing SACD. So aside from the fact that its unreliable, I didn't find it to be particularly good sounding either.

Not trying to rain on anyone's parade here, but just my observation that the SA8260 is not the most successful Marantz piece ever made both sonically and functionally.

marantz sa 8260 -
bought this unit here on audiogon before i became educated on its predilection for problems.
when i first started haveing problems i called the seller and he said buy a cleaner cd and let it clean the unit. cleaner cd doesnt cure its ailments.
it wont play some cds, it stays stuck at #1 track - dead in the water, it frequently skips, skips and stops - so many differnt cds that it sits unused at present.
marantz.com suggests sending it to www.servicewidetech.com

servicewide phone answerer(not a tech) states repair may be around $100 to $200. the actual estimate would be determined when the service tech sees it. there is $50 charge if you decide not to repair. shipping costs additional.
i was not allowed to speak to a servicetech at servicewidetech ("they dont have time to talk on the phone")to get a feel for what degree of attentiveness they give these marantz'.
i see many 'factory refurbised' sa 8260's on ebay for $649 + $27 shipping.... . hhhmmmm
not sure what to do. if i had instructions on typical unit defect repair i would do it myself if i could.
so on my current budget it looks like risk marantz repair or find a new player for about the same as the cost of marantz repair !!!
sorry if this is a little whinney..
but i had to get it out. i feel better now.
paul (florida)