SONY SACD players not reading SACD hybrid discs

[cvsonyboy]

I have 3 Sony SACD players.  One is about 10 years old, but it stopped reading hybrid discs about 8 months ago. I had bought a brand new player 4 years ago in anticipation of just this eventuality.  I took it out of its box hooked it up and it failed to any hybrid discs and still won't.  Needless to say I am not impressed.  I bought another player from a seller on ebay,  this option was suggested to me sometime ago by Sony Customer Service, as of course once again, Sony not understanding their customers stopped making SACD players (despite SACDs continually being released by many labels including Sony Japan) I played one disc successfully on that and now, like the other 2 it won't read the hybrid layer of the SACD.

Is this something that can be repaired?  I don't want to have to go through all the effort and cost of a repair and find it doesn't work.  I have been there before!  I have little confidence in Sony repairs as I had a top of the range VHS player some years back which had a fault and sent it back for repair, they had it for months and I had real problems getting it back.  When it was eventually returned it still never worked properly, but had cost me a fortune.  From what I read on Facebook the customer service seems to still be suffering real problems with a lack of customer focus, so it does not fill me with much confidence.

I have a large collection of Surround Sound SACDs ,built up over the 10 years since Sony introduced the format, that I want to continue to enjoy.  Sony, in their short sightedness pulled the plug on SACDs.  Now though they are now promoting audiophile sound, even though in view that is what SACD is,  I won't go down that route at all as I don't trust them not to pull the plug again!  Also I enjoy my music in surround sound, I don't want stereo recordings, so I am very keen to make the most of my collection.  

Any thoughts on what I can do?  I am not a great fan of universal players, having been spoilt with my first Sony SACD, which to Sony's credit was brilliant it cost £100 but has been superb and offered a great listening experience, I miss it!  Where might be the best place to look for a repair or is there another dedicated SACD surround player out there?  Thanks for any thoughts.

[Anonymous]

Hi there

Im not too familiar with the internal workings and mechanisms of the SACD players.  Hybrid players change the wave-length of the lazer depending on which layer of the hybrid disc.  Whether this is done via a dual lazer mechanism or simply a diode to change the lazer frequency i am unsure. 

Now, if your players are failing to read hybrid discs, the most obvious answer is to the lazer mechanism. 

Search Sony's authorised repair centres :

http://services.sony.co.uk/support/en/repair/asc

In the 15years since SACD, the consumer market has moved on to other things (ie digital downloads and now Hi-Res audio).  I would assume that there would only be a small niche market now for dedicated SACD players of which it probably doesnt make economic sense to release products for a very small group subset.  Sony hasnt totally abandoned support of SACD completely - however the SACD functions are incorporated into Bluray players.

Cheers

[sean2701]

I have a fix which may help. I have got a small thin strip of sellotape and put it through the middle of the disc sicking one side to the label and the other to the play side. The piece needs to be small enough so it does not cover the Table of Contents on the playing side. I then pinch the piece through the centre of the disc so as to make the hole not fully circular.

This works for me first time 8/10 and even then a little reshaping of the tape will make it work.

I think what happens is the tape makes the disc sit a little off kilter enabling the SACD layer to be read.

Try small pieces and make sure they have stuck to the disc so they don't fly off into the player.

I have a Sony DVP-NS900V.

[gaaloe]

I have thee exact same issue on 2 SACD players! One is a XA1200ES. It plays SACD (Miles Davies Kind of Blue), even Multi-ch, so the laser is not entirely broken, but it selects the CD layer on any Hybrid SACD, and refuses to recognize any existance of a SACD layer. The same happens on my older SACD/DVD Sony player. I keep reading in the Internet of an autocalibration possibility, but I can not find out how to start it.

[anjump123]

Hi 

If it's similar to my DVP-NS9100es then there is a calibration prcedure in the diagnostics menu but.......you need the reference discs! 

Some people suggesting trying normal discs but that didn't work for me. 

Unfortunately no-one that I've tried to contact at the "approved service centres" have the refernce discs and don't want to buy them as they are too expensive, but they are, apparently available for sony service centres to buy! 

So for the want of a bit of co-operation and helpfulness our high end players are unrepairable. 

Sony customer services are a waste of time as all they do is refer you to one service centre after another, most of whom don't even know what to do and the only one I could find used to be able to rent the discs form Pacifica and return them after use. 

If you find someone with the reference discs please let me know. 

[JerryKP]

My Sony Player just started not reading multichannel SACD's and I am bummed! Not sure what to do about. Love the player and the fact that it holds 5 disks. Thought maybe it was just a setting but am unable to make it work

[Anonymous]

Hi, for repair queries I would recommend to ask advice from the tech support team here.

[eye-fi]

Same happened to mine XA-777ES. Had not been used for a while, months I guess. Bought some new hybrid discs & failed to read them. Thought the discs were faulty or just plain not genuine. I put in a pure SACD disc & worked fine first time. So frustrated I tried them in a Pioneer BD player & they read them no probs. So looked for some other hybrid discs I had & they did not work either 😞

Really quite upset as the player isn't heavily used.

After some research looked at the test mode menu but made little sense so decided to take other advice of cleaning the head. For this had to remove top case & some other frame parts around the mechanism. Drawer needed to be open too. Used a spectacle cloth to clean laser head. Wiped it several times then re-assembled.

The unit, I am happy to say, is now reading hybrid discs  although it is a bit tempramental. I suspect the mechanism itself needs some lubrication/maintenance so the head can move up & down more freely.

[eye-fi]

Sadly, while there was success in reading many Hybrid discs it would not read all of them. So after much research I decided to replace the laser which just so happened to be the same assembly in a Sony XB770 of which I have.

 I never use this unit & have considered selling it as it just doesn't cut the mustard with SACD. So I dismantled this as it worked perfectly when I fired it up. The only difference is the puck on the motor assembly. The XB770 doesn't have a "grip" pattern on the puck periphery. Therefore I decided to remove the laser unit assembly as the motor didn't look easy to remove, the puck on the spindle was attached somehow & I didn't want to break it trying to remove it as this needed to be removed.

So having achieved dismantling of both laser assembly's, changing over the laser module's & reassembly I now have a working SCD XA-777ES & no doubt (not assembled yet) a non working XB770. I think I can live with that for now!

[logean55]

ok I have a sacd player mistracked often over a number of years finally gave up tracking sacd a... friend repaired the unit by cleaning some contaminated spindle motor bearing just saying...... works perfectly....