Marantaz MCR603 Tuner / Internet Radio problems

[paddyb]

Recently, my Marantz MCR603 has started booting up with the message “No Signal” when I first switch it on in the morning (always to Radio 6 on DAB). No other stations can be found on FM or AM either. This is usually resolved in the good old IT Crowd way of “turning it off and on again”, but it is now sometimes taking 3 or 4 turn off and ons to get it working. Once the radio starts, there is no problem. This only seems to happen if it has been off overnight, it’s ok after being off for shorter periods.

As an alternative, I looked at Internet Radio on the device. Selecting it, I get a message directing me to radiomarantz.com. This redirects to https://marantz.vtuner.com/ which then asks me to pay $5 a year. Is this really necessary?

 

[Symples]

Sounds like an intermittent faulty component which is damn hard to fault.

It will probably get worse and the good news is that when it fails completely, it can be traced and fixed. (I had that on an old amp. Solution was to leave it on)

But if it's under guarantee. Take it in.
Oh... and also try an Internet search (I'm sure you have already)

 

[paddyb]

Thanks for your response and sorry for the late reply to this.

The unit is the best part of ten years old and long out of guarantee, though I seem to remember Richer Sounds saying that if I bought insurance at any time in the future, they would fix/replace it? It’s been superseded several times, most recently the MCR612.

Google did throw up a solution, but it’s not easy, I’d need to get someone with much better soldering skills than me to do this:
https://www.avforums.com/threads/marantz-m-cr603-dab-no-service-problem-fix.2441284/

I found this thread about the vtuner issue:
https://www.avforums.com/threads/vtuner-internet-radio-stop-working-marantz-denon-3-case.2269858/

Lots of unhappy Marantz / Denon users. Seems you can just pay $5 for the first year and only need to renew if you want to search for new stations. There are workarounds, but they sound complicated.

Happily, I found that if I scroll through the options, Radio 6 was stored in Favourites and I’m trying that as an alternative to DAB. The sound quality is better, but there is no track / show info and it takes an age to connect when I first boot up. Any way to speed this up?