Failure of Marantz AV 8003 pre/pro yesterday.

[TLS Guy]

My Marantz AV 8003 went down yesterday, suddenly. There was a clear blue sky with no problems on the electric grid.

This unit was bought new from a licensed Marantz dealer Hi-Fi Sound of Minneapolis and installed in my No. 1 AV rack 18 months ago. Thank goodness it has a three year warranty.

Until yesterday the unit was rock solid stable with no problems ever before.

Now there is whole house surge protection. The studio has its own dedicated sub panel. The unit is powered via an APC smart UPS.

The unit has excellent ventilation in the rack. There is obsessional grounding of all racks. The unit was checked to well bonded to the rack by the mounting brackets. The chase has an air extraction system, above the power amp case and two high flow AC ducts. The unit which consumes 60 watts has always run cool.

You can see plenty of room above the unit.

I used the unit after I got up to catch up on the news. No problems.

A couple of hours later I intended to listen to FM radio.

On switching on the Marantz AV 8003, the unit clicked and the red stand by light blinked. I unplugged the unit several times. The result was the same. The unit will not power up to allow a reset.

So the unit was removed from the rack, put in its original packaging after removing the rack mount kit, and returned to the dealer.

Fortunately I was coming to the Twin Cities yesterday. Also I'm leaving for England in less than two weeks for a month. So I hope the Marantz service department have this sorted out by the time I get back.

This is the second reported failure of one of these units on these forums. The previous reporter was in the Far East, and Marantz did not prevent further failure after at least a couple of returns.

So I hope Marantz US do a lot better.

I have the strong impression that domestic AV equipment has less than a stellar record of reliability.

This unit has no sources of heat, like amps round it and was obsessionally installed.

I have asked for a full report on this unit from Marantz and an accounting of every component replaced.

This unit is far too expensive to be considered a disposable item.

As I have stated before, the best gear, and the gear I have most respect for is the vintage gear.

There is no vintage AV gear that is suitable, and at this rate I doubt there ever will be.

On the bright side, I can easily route all my audio gear through my trusty vintage Quad 44 pre amp and on to the crossover. I can change to my analog bass management at the flick of a switch.

I can watch TV downstairs which uses pretty much entirely vintage equipment and seems to be the better for it.

I have an increasingly jaundiced view of modern, manufacture and not just electronics.

I have just discovered an absolute outrage concerning my Yamaha F150 out board motor and will report on that disgrace shortly in the Steam Vent.

 

[GranteedEV]

Such failure may be a reason that Marantz has shifted its manufacture back to Japan with the latest lines IE AV7005...

Hopefully you get your product back in good shape!

 

[Adam]

That sucks, Mark - best of luck getting it fixed right and in time for your return. Luckily you still have plenty of great gear to use in the meantime!

And to think that my Pioneer Elite receiver with its internal amps is still going strong after two years. Sorry - I couldn't resist!

 

[mtrycrafts]

My Marantz AV 8003 went down yesterday, suddenly. There was a clear blue sky with no problems on the electric grid.

That you could tell those gremlins are invisible to the visible spectrum, UV, and a few others.

There is obsessional grounding of all racks.

...

Really? I sure am glad you pointed this out I thought all that bare copper was for decoration

Nonetheless, let us know if you discover the fault in the component. Alwasy good t0o know why it failed.

 

[TLS Guy]

Well all it took to get all the audio equipment up and running was four RCA barrel connectors from my stocks. I just connected the output from the switch bus to cables that went into the front outputs of the pre/pro.

I connected the output of the Quad FM 4 FM radio tuner to the cables that went to the tape out of the pre/pro.

I'm using my audio workstation and associated RME Fireface 800 for audio control.

I have the front speakers giving superb two channel stereo full range sound. This is another advantage of not using a receiver.

No Far Eastern equipment is currently in the audio path!

 

[GO-NAD!]

Really? I sure am glad you pointed this out I thought all that bare copper was for decoration

Nonetheless, let us know if you discover the fault in the component. Alwasy good t0o know why it failed.

I think you may have hit on the root cause of the receiver failure.

There is obsessional grounding of all racks.

That obsessional grounding has not been obsessionally polished. Sorry Doc - couldn't resist.

 

[TLS Guy]

Update.

The technician at Hi-Fi Sound looked at it today. He is very experienced. Apparently the failure is severe and extensive. it is beyond his expertize, so it is on its way to Marantz.

I'm now concerned that this unit will quickly become a boat anchor!

Unfortunately for this part of the system you are pretty much forced into Far Eastern gear. I have never liked Far Eastern equipment and this goes along with my previous experience to date with it.

I remember better times before the onslaught of all this Asian gear. They were much better days.

 

[Jeepers]

Unfortunately for this part of the system you are pretty much forced into Far Eastern gear. I have never liked Far Eastern equipment and this goes along with my previous experience to date with it.

Out of curiosity; why did you purchase this AV pre-pro and not a McIntosh pre-pro ?

 

[TLS Guy]

Out of curiosity; why did you purchase this AV pre-pro and not a McIntosh pre-pro ?

The Mac was not available at that time, and in any event the MRSP is 12 K. Also the Mac is not a rack mountable unit.

2.5 K should be enough cash for a good pre/pro.

 

[Docks]

Hope it all works out in a proper fashion. The outcome of this will definitely show Audioholics how Marantz treats its customers.

 

[TLS Guy]

Hope it all works out in a proper fashion. The outcome of this will definitely show Audioholics how Marantz treats its customers.

Yes it will, and I will keep everyone up to date.

 

[Alex2507]

I will keep everyone up to date.

It's not just us watching either. Just in case any Marantz people see this TLS Guy is like the Grand Poo-Bah in the AES. You don't want to screw him cause he'll make a ruckus.

 

[PENG]

Yes it will, and I will keep everyone up to date.

I think they should replace the unit if the repair is in fact extensive. If they don't have new ones in inventory would you accept a brand new made in Japan AV7005, may be slightly lesser quality but more features? You probably don't care about the cheaper internal DACs in the 7005 either I guess.

 

[3db]

TLS

I'm sorry to hear about your woes with the Marantz..but I think you should put it into perspective..hard to do I realize when your holding the sh?ty end of the stick. There has not been many reported failures of Marantz equipment on this forum, certainly far far less then Onkyo and even less than Denon.

With proper management and QC processes in place, a company should be able to manufacturer anywhere with good results. If QC suffers, its a fault of management trying to ring every conceivable cent out of the product by taking short cuts etc. I'm not supporting out sourcing to China at all but I'm also the person to call a spade a spade. Its solely not the fault of the Chinese but a combined problem of Chinese and greedy NA management practises.

 

[TLS Guy]

TLS

I'm sorry to hear about your woes with the Marantz..but I think you should put it into perspective..hard to do I realize when your holding the sh?ty end of the stick. There has not been many reported failures of Marantz equipment on this forum, certainly far far less then Onkyo and even less than Denon.

With proper management and QC processes in place, a company should be able to manufacturer anywhere with good results. If QC suffers, its a fault of management trying to ring every conceivable cent out of the product by taking short cuts etc. I'm not supporting out sourcing to China at all but I'm also the person to call a spade a spade. Its solely not the fault of the Chinese but a combined problem of Chinese and greedy NA management practises.

I agree to an extent, but manufacturing contracted out to China is all over the map. You just don't know how the manufacturing and supply chain was organized.

International Audio Group which own a lot of famous UK brands, have their own dedicated factory, that is very modern. They even shipped out all of Peter Walker jigs for the ESLs. It still leaves me with a feeling of unease.

I realize no conclusions whatsoever can be gathered from one failure. However my son who works in semiconductor design is very concerned about the quality of the Chinese chip manufacturing group. The Taiwan group is much better. The plans to manufacture in the US and Germany seem to have foundered with the deteriorating economy.

The credit markets are still tight. Today the FED, Bank of England, the central banks of Japan and Switzerland are recapitalizing the European banks for the second time with dollars.

This is all printed money and the extent of this massive round of quantitative easing is not known at this point. In the end this has probably just kicked the can down the road for 2 to 3 months. So the whole situation is difficult.

 

[TLS Guy]

I think they should replace the unit if the repair is in fact extensive. If they don't have new ones in inventory would you accept a brand new made in Japan AV7005, may be slightly lesser quality but more features? You probably don't care about the cheaper internal DACs in the 7005 either I guess.

Well lets see what happens, and what the issues are. I would settle for the 7005, I'm uncertain how big and issue the different Dacs would be. I doubt an audible difference.

Reliability and core functions are of prime importance to me. From a previous poster I helped with a 7005, I'm a bit concerned about an internal ground loop issue, which goes to core function.

 

[PENG]

Well lets see what happens, and what the issues are. I would settle for the 7005, I'm uncertain how big and issue the different Dacs would be. I doubt an audible difference.

Reliability and core functions are of prime importance to me. From a previous poster I helped with a 7005, I'm a bit concerned about an internal ground loop issue, which goes to core function.

I remember that discussion on the humming issue but the way you wire your system I doubt you would have trouble. My wiring setup is no where near yours and I have no humming issue with my 7005. I only mentioned that as an option in case they either could not repair yours and there are no more 8003 left. Also, if your do some power googling you will find that aside from the hum/ground loop thing, there really wasn't much if any trouble reports on the 7005.

The selling price of the AV8003 was near 3K at launch time. That's a lot of money for something that was made in China. Anyway, like others, I wish you luck in getting it back in perfect condition, and soon.

 

[TLS Guy]

I returned from the UK on Saturday, and got back to Benedict Monday.

The Marantz 8003 had been returned repaired.

The unit was returned with a note saying that the power supply had been repaired. I don't know if they replaced a component, or just replaced the regulator board. My guess is a regulator blew.

The unit was repaired by Service Wide Technologies, 2239 Curtiss Street, Downers Grove, IL 60515.

I installed the unit on Monday. The unit had been totally reset and so I had to a complete set up. The unit has been working fine since re installation.

So I have to say I'm happy with the warranty repair. They fixed it no hassle.

On another note as before, Audyssey wants to give a top end lift. This sounds bad and wrong. I wonder if others have noted this. I think the problem comes from the HF roll off with distance from the source and SHOULD NOT be equalized. I think this auto EQ program equalizes for this and that is just plain wrong.

Others might want to investigate.

Audyssey does not Eq any other part of the frequency spectrum on my rig, just the very top end, and it ruins things.

 

[GranteedEV]

I'm glad this didn't end up a nightmare for you

 

[TLS Guy]

I'm glad this didn't end up a nightmare for you

So am I! You just never know what to expect these days in these situations.