Mid-way through reconfiguring my new setup, my 11 year-old Marantz SR-6010 became unresponsive to most commands. Many hours of AI-assisted troubleshooting and online research led me to one awful conclusion. The EPROMM was corrupted or otherwise malfunctioning in an irreparable way. My first reaction was to see if I could get it fixed, but it just didn't make sense. Only a Marantz-authorized servicer can even do it and they would have to use refurbished parts. Those parts are currently running about $600, because they have to replace the whole control board. That means a $900 repair, which makes no sense.
I did not want to buy a new receiver right now and I certainly didn't have a huge budget. What I did need were preamp outputs and you cannot get those on lower end receivers. I even saw some in the $1400 range with no pre-outs, which is just nuts. I spent a lot of time looking at used gear. The issue that is I'd be rolling the dice on another component that may not be reparable in a few years. After many hours of searching for a less expensive alternative that actually made sense, I landed on a brand new Onkyo TX-RZ50. I've had mixed results from Onkyo in the past, so I did some research on this one. Rock solid with a really good feature set for the price point. I was able to score one new in the box on eBay for $1100 including shipping. It will be here in about a week.
I did not want to buy a new receiver right now and I certainly didn't have a huge budget. What I did need were preamp outputs and you cannot get those on lower end receivers. I even saw some in the $1400 range with no pre-outs, which is just nuts. I spent a lot of time looking at used gear. The issue that is I'd be rolling the dice on another component that may not be reparable in a few years. After many hours of searching for a less expensive alternative that actually made sense, I landed on a brand new Onkyo TX-RZ50. I've had mixed results from Onkyo in the past, so I did some research on this one. Rock solid with a really good feature set for the price point. I was able to score one new in the box on eBay for $1100 including shipping. It will be here in about a week.
