Sony TA-E9000ES is dead, what to do?

S

sterling shoote

Audioholic Field Marshall
My 20 year old Sony Pre-Pro popped about 3 times the other day, as heard from speakers, and then went silent. An hour later it begin to play again. Two days later, more popping, but this time no resurrection. I called the only repair shop in Louisville, KY where I live to take a look at it but they declined. I do want to repair this unit since it has inputs/outputs for optical S/PDIF, which I need to operate my pair of DAT Recorders. There are no currently produced Pre-Pros that have those sorts of connections. At any rate, to get me back to where I was before the Pre-Pro went out I bought a Parasound P6 stereo preamplifer. It will also get me bass management, from all stereo components I will be connecting to it. So, I'm OK for now but still want to repair the TA-E9000ES thus my question is this: are there any of you here knowledgeable of an electronics repair shop in USA which might look at my TA-E90000ES?
 
P

PENG

Audioholic Slumlord
My 20 year old Sony Pre-Pro popped about 3 times the other day, as heard from speakers, and then went silent. An hour later it begin to play again. Two days later, more popping, but this time no resurrection. I called the only repair shop in Louisville, KY where I live to take a look at it but they declined. I do want to repair this unit since it has inputs/outputs for optical S/PDIF, which I need to operate my pair of DAT Recorders. There are no currently produced Pre-Pros that have those sorts of connections. At any rate, to get me back to where I was before the Pre-Pro went out I bought a Parasound P6 stereo preamplifer. It will also get me bass management, from all stereo components I will be connecting to it. So, I'm OK for now but still want to repair the TA-E9000ES thus my question is this: are there any of you here knowledgeable of an electronics repair shop in USA which might look at my TA-E90000ES?
If you can't get it repair, you still have the option to use an analog to digital optical/coax converter with a new Sony or whatever you end up choosing to replace the TA-E9000ES.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
My 20 year old Sony Pre-Pro popped about 3 times the other day, as heard from speakers, and then went silent. An hour later it begin to play again. Two days later, more popping, but this time no resurrection. I called the only repair shop in Louisville, KY where I live to take a look at it but they declined. I do want to repair this unit since it has inputs/outputs for optical S/PDIF, which I need to operate my pair of DAT Recorders. There are no currently produced Pre-Pros that have those sorts of connections. At any rate, to get me back to where I was before the Pre-Pro went out I bought a Parasound P6 stereo preamplifer. It will also get me bass management, from all stereo components I will be connecting to it. So, I'm OK for now but still want to repair the TA-E9000ES thus my question is this: are there any of you here knowledgeable of an electronics repair shop in USA which might look at my TA-E90000ES?
Repair may or may not be possible. If it is a passive component it will be possible. If it an integrated circuit that has blown the chances of repair are remote.

I think those Sony DATs have balanced analog inputs/outputs don't they? In which case you can float lines to unbalanced inputs and outputs. That is what I do with my DAT, not that I have call to use it much any more. My previous pre pros had tape outs but not a loop. My Marantz 7705 does not. However a zone output can be set to a fixed output over a wide range of levels in the set up menu. I suspect you could easily make the Marantz 7706 work very well for you and have a big upgrade to your system. As I have said before, if you like to record, then a DAW is a massive upgrade over a DAT recorder.

I personally would encourage other options other than the repair of a 20 year old pre/pro.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
My 20 year old Sony Pre-Pro popped about 3 times the other day, as heard from speakers, and then went silent. An hour later it begin to play again. Two days later, more popping, but this time no resurrection. I called the only repair shop in Louisville, KY where I live to take a look at it but they declined. I do want to repair this unit since it has inputs/outputs for optical S/PDIF, which I need to operate my pair of DAT Recorders. There are no currently produced Pre-Pros that have those sorts of connections. At any rate, to get me back to where I was before the Pre-Pro went out I bought a Parasound P6 stereo preamplifer. It will also get me bass management, from all stereo components I will be connecting to it. So, I'm OK for now but still want to repair the TA-E9000ES thus my question is this: are there any of you here knowledgeable of an electronics repair shop in USA which might look at my TA-E90000ES?
Are you using all of the digital coax inputs? If your sources don't have coax outputs, you could buy a device that converts from optical to coax- they work well.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Are you using all of the digital coax inputs? If your sources don't have coax outputs, you could buy a device that converts from optical to coax- they work well.
Yes, an optical converter is an option. However I'm pretty sure his problem can be solved without another conversion. As I said, on my Marantz 7705 a zone out can be figured to act exactly like an analog tape out. So, Sterling what are the model numbers of your DAT's? I'm pretty sure that there are analog in and outs on those recorders. You really only need an analog in. The current pre/pros do not have an optical out, however they all have optical in. So you just need to devise a way to get an output from the pre/pro. to an input on the DAT. Any analog input will do, it does not matter if it is balanced or unbalanced. You can do this well with either.
I'm certain you do not have to go to the expense and trouble of trying to resurrect a 20 year old pre/pro. I highly doubt this is a difficult problem.
 
S

sterling shoote

Audioholic Field Marshall
Yes I have coax to optical/optical to coax M-Audio device now. It's the optical record out, as well as analog record out that is desired. I just bought a Parasound P6 which can get analog out and I could of course just temporally connect any of my components which have coax or optical out direct to DAT Recorder. It's just much more convenient to have digital out from pre-pro.
 
S

sterling shoote

Audioholic Field Marshall
Repair may or may not be possible. If it is a passive component it will be possible. If it an integrated circuit that has blown the chances of repair are remote.

I think those Sony DATs have balanced analog inputs/outputs don't they? In which case you can float lines to unbalanced inputs and outputs. That is what I do with my DAT, not that I have call to use it much any more. My previous pre pros had tape outs but not a loop. My Marantz 7705 does not. However a zone output can be set to a fixed output over a wide range of levels in the set up menu. I suspect you could easily make the Marantz 7706 work very well for you and have a big upgrade to your system. As I have said before, if you like to record, then a DAW is a massive upgrade over a DAT recorder.

I personally would encourage other options other than the repair of a 20 year old pre/pro.
My units have IEC 958 input/output option so I can indeed send from my components to record to DAT directly, even from an optical output since I have an M-Audio optical to coax/coax to optical converter. What I use the DAT Recorders for these days is recording streams from computer. Without the Sony, I believe I can take this route to recording to DAT: usb to OPPO, OPPO coax to DAT Recorder, although I have not tried it yet.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
My units have IEC 958 input/output option so I can indeed send from my components to record to DAT directly, even from an optical output since I have an M-Audio optical to coax/coax to optical converter. What I use the DAT Recorders for these days is recording streams from computer. Without the Sony, I believe I can take this route to recording to DAT: usb to OPPO, OPPO coax to DAT Recorder, although I have not tried it yet.
Again it sounds as if a DAW would be a massive upgrade for you and much more convenient. You must be about the last guy on Earth still recording to DAT tape. DAT is really only an archiving device now, and there is precious little of that left.
 
S

sterling shoote

Audioholic Field Marshall
Again it sounds as if a DAW would be a massive upgrade for you and much more convenient. You must be about the last guy on Earth still recording to DAT tape. DAT is really only an archiving device now, and there is precious little of that left.
The DAT Recorders are mostly needed now to get several hundred radio commercials on DAT to TASCAM DA-3000 via AES-EBU to strip any DATs which might be copy protected.
 
P

pgrebus

Audiophyte
My 20 year old Sony Pre-Pro popped about 3 times the other day, as heard from speakers, and then went silent. An hour later it begin to play again. Two days later, more popping, but this time no resurrection. I called the only repair shop in Louisville, KY where I live to take a look at it but they declined. I do want to repair this unit since it has inputs/outputs for optical S/PDIF, which I need to operate my pair of DAT Recorders. There are no currently produced Pre-Pros that have those sorts of connections. At any rate, to get me back to where I was before the Pre-Pro went out I bought a Parasound P6 stereo preamplifer. It will also get me bass management, from all stereo components I will be connecting to it. So, I'm OK for now but still want to repair the TA-E9000ES thus my question is this: are there any of you here knowledgeable of an electronics repair shop in USA which might look at my TA-E90000ES?
I had an intermittent popping through mine, but way back in the day, under warranty. The repair tech had it for over a month on constantly before it repeated. I believe there was a service bulletin related to the problem, but that doesn't mean you can find someone to fix it. Mine crapped out last week - I get sound through the headphone jack, but not to the amp.
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
I had an intermittent popping through mine, but way back in the day, under warranty. The repair tech had it for over a month on constantly before it repeated. I believe there was a service bulletin related to the problem, but that doesn't mean you can find someone to fix it. Mine crapped out last week - I get sound through the headphone jack, but not to the amp.
I had a look at the circuit. There is not a discrete transistor in sight, it is all custom ICs, so the chance of being able to repair that unit are about zero.
Time to move on. That unit is a recycling job.
 
S

sterling shoote

Audioholic Field Marshall
I had a look at the circuit. There is not a discrete transistor in sight, it is all custom ICs, so the chance of being able to repair that unit are about zero.
Time to move on. That unit is a recycling job.
I recently watched a YouTube Video showing the repair of a TA-E9000ES, a plethora of problems fixed, but, the guy is in the UK. At any rate, I'm keeping the unit and an eye out for someone to look into repairing it. Interestingly enough, my OPPO-205, connected direct to a multi-channel analog preamp, is now handling 5.1 music and movies, a Parasound P6 just purchased is handling digital and analog stereo source components, and I figured out how to hook up one of my DAT Recorders to computer via a Creative Sound Blaster X-FI and M-Audio optical to coax/coax to optical converter. So, I can still stream to DAT, as well as record DAT to computer. In other words, all is well. I may still get a Marantz 7705 Pre-Pro for ATMOS; but, right now, it appears the loss of the TA-E9000ES is not short circuiting any of the functions I have come to enjoy.
 
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