Marantz 8260 CD/SACD

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)

You know what's the funniest thing about this all, how you people going to sell these players with all this bad press?

I bought one the middle of last year hoping the issues would be fixed. Brand new problems out of the box. Very slow read times and disc errors galore. I just bought a new transport and stayed with Sony ES as Marantz gives me the willies now. I never knew what would play and what wouldn't.

The sound quality was excellent but I will not buy another Marantz player maybe ever. I had the 63 from the mid 90's but it took a few years to die. As much as I don't like Sony the company I've never had problems even with the inexpensive players of theirs I've used over the last 2 decades.

In my opinion after this many years of production my respect for Marantz is now pretty nil, at least for the latest products. Ones made in the 70's were very good indeed.

My 8260 started refusing to read certain SACD's, then a few more, then almost all SACD's failed.
I sent it back to Marantz and they replaced the laser and tracking mechanism.
Problem solved.