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What to do with Dead Sony SCD 777ES

I did 1/2 a job. I took the lid/top plate off and then took out the 5 screws that hold the black cover plate over the sled rails and cleaned the rails as best as I could and lubed them with white lithium grease. then I cleaned the 2 lenses and put it all back together and tried it. It will play CD's no problem but it is not happy with Hybrid discs, most of the time I get no disc some times it goes to the cd layer and plays that and some times it plays the SACD layer but not often. When I fed it a Sony SACD only disc it played that.

I did see a couple of videos where someone tuned the laser to give it more power but this was not on a Sony SACD 1 or 777ES so I'm not sure it can be done. Does anyone have knowledge of this being used on a 777ES?

Other than that I see I can get a new laser on ebay from Canada for $300 delivered. I'm not sure how much skill is needed to install it or if it needs fine tuning. When I mentioned Sony ES to my repairman he said he doesn't touch them, too much involved or something along those lines.

Anyone within 75 miles of NYC that can fix it?

Alan
 
If the laser(s) is working, no need to replace it or you might just end up with a door stop. Probably basic cleaning and alignment is the real culprit here. In my experience, the laser either works or it doesn't work. If it doesn't work, then it is burned out and won't read or play any discs.........ever.
 
99.9% of the time Sony lasers don't go bad. @acass have you downloaded the service manual from hifiengine.com?
 
I know this is a Zombie thread but I recently resurrected a Sony SCD-777ES that the original owner thought was a door stop/Boat Anchor. Had all the issues. Wouldn't read SACDs. Would sometimes read redbook CDs. Would show no disc errors. Would lock up and not open the door, requiring a power down and restart. The advice i found on the "google" mostly said the optics were dead but the fact that it would randomly play discs lead me to believe it was something else. Another interesting trait it had was once it warmed up for an hour or so it would start up CDs more regularly and even load a SACD once and a while. I cleaned and lubed the rails. it maybe improved 10%. I bought a new stabilizer because the one that came with it was aftermarket and poorly made. I gained another 15%! I kept researching and eventually I came across a guy who posted that the drive gears for the sled shrink over time and bind on their shafts. This causes too much drag and the discs cannot be scanned and initialized properly. His fis was careful reaming of the center of the big white gears to get them to spin freely. I removed the gears by taking of the small plastic lock washers. read that again SMALL! A dental pick and a razor blade worked for me. With the lock washers removed I had to carefully rock both gears off their shafts. They would still spin but they were definitely very tight. The black gear in that assembly spun freely and didn't require the modification. I have a set of round diamond files for cleaning contacts one of them fit perfectly for this job and I was able to carefully sand the inner diameter. I checked the fit on the shaft frequently to ensure I didn't go to far. Once they fit well and spun smoothly I cleaned and lubed the shafts and replaced everything. It fired up the first CD at least 50% faster than it ever did before. Same with the first SACD. Don't be intimidated by this procedure if you are basically mechanically inclined it is not difficult. The job requires minimal disassembly just the top cover of the player and the metal cover over the top of the sled. I tested it all night long and it played everything. I let it rest over night in my basement where its pretty cold and it fired right up in the morning and loaded CDs and SACDs. This may not fix every "dead" SCD-777ES out there but it could help a lot of them!
 

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I got mine when it quit reading SACD’s and hence its value to the previous owner. For quite a while it would read regular CD’s though. Eventually I had to turn it on and let it sit an hour to warm up before it would recognize them. This winter it wouldn’t even do that and I put it in the queue.
Your post prompted me to give it a try this rainy morning.
The middle white gear was really tight on the axle and the first white one less so. My black gear was also fine.
I used a #28 drill bit stroked back and forth in the bore by hand until it fit better on the shaft. Cleaned them up, relubed them and the 777 is playing a SACD as I type this!IMG_8653.jpegIMG_8652.jpeg
 
Bradbrews said:
I got mine when it quit reading SACD’s and hence its value to the previous owner. For quite a while it would read regular CD’s though. Eventually I had to turn it on and let it sit an hour to warm up before it would recognize them. This winter it wouldn’t even do that and I put it in the queue.
Your post prompted me to give it a try this rainy morning.
The middle white gear was really tight on the axle and the first white one less so. My black gear was also fine.
I used a #28 drill bit stroked back and forth in the bore by hand until it fit better on the shaft. Cleaned them up, relubed them and the 777 is playing a SACD as I type this!View attachment 3547655View attachment 3547654
Click to expand...
$%#& YEAH! I am glad it worked for you too! My middle gear was also tighter than the first one and the longer the unit was on the better it worked! This is awesome, I am glad you found the post and had success, CHEERS!
 
Bradbrews said:
I got mine when it quit reading SACD’s and hence its value to the previous owner. For quite a while it would read regular CD’s though. Eventually I had to turn it on and let it sit an hour to warm up before it would recognize them. This winter it wouldn’t even do that and I put it in the queue.
Your post prompted me to give it a try this rainy morning.
The middle white gear was really tight on the axle and the first white one less so. My black gear was also fine.
I used a #28 drill bit stroked back and forth in the bore by hand until it fit better on the shaft. Cleaned them up, relubed them and the 777 is playing a SACD as I type this!View attachment 3547655View attachment 3547654
Click to expand...
I have a question for you. Mine will play every CD no problem. It will play every SACD that is just SACD Stereo/ CD but it refuses to play SACDs that also have a 5 channel layer. Is this an issue with mine or will this player not read SACDs with 5 ch layer? It will play the CD layer on those discs… just not the SACD layer. TIA
 
The XA777ES does multi channel.
I have one of those that no longer plays SACDs.
It’s also a front loader not a top loader.
The top load is cool at first but the player demands to be treated like a turntable. This makes it harder to fit into a system.

Maybe I should look into transport friction in the XA….IMG_8680.jpeg
 
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