In Reply to: Used cd players -- safe bet ? posted by greg7 on November 10, 2007 at 11:24:56:
I have not had any problems with the machines I've bought. As far as I know, the SCD-1 I purchased and later gave to a friend is still operating (7+ years), and this was a notoriously unreliable model.
The problem for manufacturers is that only a small number of vendors sell the basic chipsets and the transport mechanism. The manufacturers frequently discontinue a particular model, often with no advanced warning. In particular, transports have been a problem.
In order to protect customers, a manufacturer has to put a LOT of money into buying a large stock of mechanisms and parts just to be able to provide customer support in the future. Not everyone can realistically do this.
A horrible example was an SACD mechanism supplied by Philips which turned out to have a fantastically high failure rate. Manufacturers who relied on this mechanism assumed that Philips had done its job in designing and testing, and many were left with egg on their face when Philips stopped making it and stopped supporting it. Actually this sort of problem is probably more a concern of purchasers of new gear, because with older stuff, one can figure out which models have turned out to be unreliable.
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Follow Ups
- Tough Question - Larry I 11/12/0706:05:32 11/12/07 (0)