Sick Marantz CD85, worth saving ?

[guzzi]

Hi all,

Some general advice from the more knowledgeable would be much appreciated.

Had the CD85 for many years and I have become very attached to it, not just for the sound quality but for the look and sheer quality.
It has become a little cranky over the years and sometimes refuses to play some discs, cleaned the lens a couple of years ago and that fixed the problem and cleaned up the sound very nicely but now it has gone back as before despite more cleaning.

I have been advised that the laser has probably become weak, recently found a new old stock laser for sale for £170, my questions are -
1) Will a new laser probably fix it
2) Can an amateur fit it
3) As the unit has not been serviced forever, should I give it to a pro to fix and service but who do you trust, I am in Devon.

Any advice much appreciated, spoke to hifi shop a few years ago, advice was to bin it and buy something modern which will be much better and cheaper, not really me though.

[Macca]

Hi Robert

If the laser is the problem then a new laser will fix it but many/most replacement lasers are chinese copies and will not last long. Don't waste money on those, check it really is NOS.

You can fit it yourself but you should observe anti-static protocols

It's not easy to find people prepared to work on CD players and even then the cost is not worth it unless they are only charging mate's rates.

The shop were probably right in what they said - and I say that as someone with a large collection of vintage cd players.

[guzzi]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for your thoughts,

Apologies for being so green but what are the anti-static protocols and would the laser need to be aligned after fitting.

I would feel sad to part with the old CD85 so I think I will give it my best shot.

Thanks again for your wisdom

[Macca]

Don't use a carpeted room, do it in the kitchen or somewhere else with no fabrics. Wear an anti-static wrist band and anti static gloves.

It may well work without re-alignment but if not you'll need to get a copy of the service manual and an oscilloscope to do that. I'm told it is not that difficult a task but never done it myself.

[guzzi]

That's great, thanks

[Macca]

Good luck with it!

[sailor]

The CD85 is definitely worth saving. It uses an excellent transport, alloy not plastic, and sports a great sounding DAC chip, TDA1541A-S1 (single crown) There are some Philips players that use the same transport and mother board which are lying around unloved and unwanted and can be got for peanuts. Many other players also used this same transport, some now no longer made and you could probably find them at your local waste recycling tip.

The TDA1541 was used in some very expensive players and DAC only units and for good reason. They sound really good and by simply breaking the PCB tracks in 2 places renders the player NOS (non oversampling) leaving the sound more relaxed. Big improvement.

I first modified a Marantz CD40, which is easy because of lots of internal space. I did this after reading lengthy articles on Lukasz Fikus' site (Lampizator) If you can solder you can convert your player elevating it's redbook performance to challenge anything out there. It involves adding caps to the existing ones around the chip for better decoupling and coming straight off pins 6 and 25 (I think, twas about 15 years ago) into the grids of an ECC88 or equivalent.

I did not modify my CD85 so can't comment on that. It does not have much space inside and I did not want the 2 valves protuding through the top plate because it would hurt my resale value. Lukasz describes his mod to a Philips CD880 which is identical to your Marantz electrically. The cheaper players had plenty of space for the valves and it's only when lifting the unit up that the weight from the additional transformer gave things away.

The Lampizator page is well worth a read.

http://www.lampizator.eu/lampizator/Lampizator.html

https://www.dutchaudioclassics.nl/the_complete_d_a_dac_converter_list/#P

[Filterlab]

The easiest way to make an anti-static bracelet is with a long length of single core wire and a mains plug.

Open the plug and connect the wire to the ground/earth terminal (ensure you have this correctly connected), remove the Live and Neutral pins from the plug as they aren’t needed. You should have only the Earth pin remaining.

Then strip back the insulator around 9” at the other end and wrap it around your dominant wrist. The wire must be physically touching your wrist.

Plug it in. Job done.

I used the exact same thing back in the days when computer components were static sensitive. Worked a treat.

[struth]

wire comes out of plug and that works rather well too :eek:

[Filterlab]

:lol:

Yep, that’ll create a ground for sure.

[eldarvanyar]

You could try Jack Wooton who is an engineer has a large collection of CD players and seems to know his stuff.
He often sells on eBay and I bought a mint Phillips CD104 from him, he recaps them and deals with the gromet issues.

I ended up buying and sending a not so mint Philips CD303 to him for the same treatment. He did a great job. I spent ages talking to him on the phone and he was very helpful.
A couple of weeks later he was selling a mint CD303 from his collection for the same price I paid for my one plus the service and upgrades and I was a bit gutted as I prefer my hifi to be mint.
His user name is merlinboat on eBay. I can pm you his email address if interested.

[Columbo]

Mike P at Pinkfishmedia regularly repairs CDs:

https://pinkfishmedia.net/forum/threads/sony-cdp-710-tda1541-upgraded-and-fully-serviced.250335/

[dowser]

The Marantz CD-85 uses the CDM1 mech - it is very unlikely a faulty laser...they go on forever. More likely the little blue axial caps visible from the underside, and/or power rail smoothing caps.

As above, excellent players, keep it alive - I’d happily fix it for you, but am in Switzerland :) If you choose to sell it, I’m also interested ;)

Richard