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Opinions / Info for Marantz SD-63

vinylisfinyl

vinylisfinyl

Member
Hello fellow tape users,

A few years ago I found a Marantz SD-63 cassette deck at a local exchange store for $10, and bought it for the fun of it. It had a couple of scratches in it and no remote, but when I got it home I liked the sound of it enough that it replaced my then-new Sony TC-WE475 in my Hi-Fi setup. I never found much info online about the Marantz, especially no user manual online. I couldn't figure out how to consistently use the rewind/fast forward buttons (they don't do the same thing each time I press them), but otherwise got it to play happily.

I stopped playing tapes for while, until this past week I decided to play some while working from home and found the treble performance to be subpar and the playback speed to be slower than I remembered. I pulled out my other tape decks to compare and found that while the Marantz had great stereo separation and bass, the highs were quite muddy with the same pre-recorded tapes that sound great on my other decks (the aforementioned Sony, a Pioneer CT-M66R, and a Rotel RD-850).

I have swapped out the Marantz for now and am contemplating what to do with it. I cleaned the heads and stands but that didn't cure the muddy highs. I was thinking of recycling it since I have several other decks to use, but looking on eBay shows other SD-63's currently for sale are posted over $200, most over $400!!

Is the SD-63 deck considered a very good one? Is it some rare gem that a lot of people think performs well? What are your thoughts on the sub-par highs that I'm experiencing? I have general tools to service electronics (scopes, multimeters, frequency generator, etc.) so am willing to try working on this if it's worth it and if I can find the service manual somewhere.

Thanks!
Tim
 

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marantz is a very bizarre company after 1979, split up into how many different ways we'll never know. It looks like the SD-63 came out in 1993, after a lot of the 80's turmoil, and retailed for $400 pricing it in line with other high-end, mid-level decks. It looks like the model was out for a few years so it must have been liked. I've got a ton of Marantz and Superscope by Marantz Decks in components, portables and boomboxes, mostly from the 70's and 80's. The weird thing is they seemed to have put more money into the portable market than the home component tape market. Some of the portables like the three headed PMD-430 are considered cream of the crop, the Superscope CRS-5000 is a three-headed wonder-beast boombox.

Personally I think three different Marantz Companies were producing the tape products going into the 80's, Superscope, Marantz Japan and Philips, each with three slightly different core products and markets, Philips being the home component market. The early 90's were tough on tape decks, not many were left standing.
 
I had an sd 63. It was a pretty good deck,sounded nice, reliable. But I had several 3 head decks that sounded and were built better, and I was never crazy about how it looked. So I sold it. Being a 90s deck, belts and electronics should last a bit longer than older stuff, and eBay prices are what they are, outrageous !
 
Appreciate the feedback! Sounds like this was a rather unknown unit then. I agree that the prices are outrageous on eBay, especially since all I paid for mine was ten buck!

Guess I'll still try to ascertain why the sound is so muddy compared to my other decks. Does anything think that tape speed could play into muddy sound? I noticed that it plays slower than my other decks, so perhaps needs new belts.
 
I have a Marantz SD-63 that I bought new in 1995 and it’s one of my favorite cassette decks in my collection (it’s the cheapest one by the way). In my opinion this is an underrated cassette deck. It does a better job of recording than playback. It’s not a TOTL tape deck and to many cassette tape enthusiasts it may not worth spending the money to have it serviced properly.


After putting my SD-63 in storage for about 15 years, I encountered the same problems as you did. The slow playback is related to the capstan motor. These motors were used in several decks during the 1990’s and they are junk. The ultimate fix is to replace it. I fixed mine temporarily by adjusting the speed pot using a test tape and oscilloscope. However, this was a temporary fix and the motor speed became inconsistent in less than a year. I ended up replacing the motor with one from Pacific Stereo. It’s a much quieter motor by the way.


I also experienced loss of higher frequencies and determined it was caused by the pinch roller. The pinch roller was hardened and compromised the tape to head contact. Replacing the pinch roller improved treble performance a lot, but the decks’s performance wasn’t as good as when it was new. I checked the azimuth and head alignment, and to my surprise I found out the head was slightly out of alignment. I realigned the head with an alignment gauge, azimuth test tape, and an oscilloscope (azimuth test tape should do it if you don’t have an alignment gauge). I also replaced the belt even though the original belt was still in a good shape. The SD-63 performs very well now!


As you have noticed there isn’t a lot of information available about this deck. The user manual is just only a few pages and contains basic information on how to operate the deck. I couldn’t find the service manual either; however, the service manual for SD-53 is available and should work for SD-63 as the only major difference is the heads (SD-53 is a two-head deck vs. SD-63 is a 3-head deck). I recently recapped my SD-63 and the SD-53 service manual shows both decks have the same board and components. There were a few differences in capacitor sizes though and a few other components’ specs were missing in the manual.


It seems you have adequate tools to service it and bring it back to life. I’d keep this deck.
 
Nimster said:
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After putting my SD-63 in storage for about 15 years, I encountered the same problems as you did. The slow playback is related to the capstan motor. These motors were used in several decks during the 1990’s and they are junk. The ultimate fix is to replace it. I fixed mine temporarily by adjusting the speed pot using a test tape and oscilloscope. However, this was a temporary fix and the motor speed became inconsistent in less than a year. I ended up replacing the motor with one from Pacific Stereo. It’s a much quieter motor by the way.

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Click to expand...

Sorry for reviving an old thread. So what is the brand of the better replacement capstan motor for this deck that I should be looking for? The label on the original motor says "MMI-6S2LK, DC12V", I guess it is made by Mabuchi which are generally OK, right?
 
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