I'll second Trevor on this one. I'm holding onto a Phillips 880 and looking
for a laser replacement for the same reason. The Sony is a superbly built
unit. Back in the day, I did a head-to-head of theat unit, the Phillips,
and the top of the line Denon (can't remember the model number). The
Phillips and the Sony ran very close together...the Sony was probably more
neutral and had the signature Sony house sound. I preferred the Phillips
slightly and so bought it, but could have been happy with the Sony. Nothing
being sold below $2000 today is built like these units were. Replace the
optical pickup and it'll be good for another 15 years.

In all consumer products-and many capital ones too-there is a quality
curve. The best are made at some point where they have the tech pretty
well down but the pressure to cut costs hasn't set in and there is a
desire not to monkey with the good thing. Once cost cutting sets in,
quality goes out the door because given the time value of money people
perceive that the cheaper one is "good enough" and the delta in price
can be reinvested to replace it: also, the buyer doesn't understand the
difference between the new one and the old one and so the new shiny
warranted one looks pretty good. (How many new car buyers appreciate
the difference between a well machined heavy sand cast cylinder head
and a near-net-shape lost foam one, which has virtually no excess meat
to machine and depends on an epoxy coating to keep coolant out of the
oil?)

If you cut the cost and hold up the price, you make more profit. Of
course the price comes down eventually, but as long as cost reduction
leads price fall you benefit in absolute as well as relative terms.

A lot of this is perception. When the customer perceives that the old
one was better, he gets conservative and less likely to buy, and our
economy is set up so you buy, buy, buy. You cannot buy a well made
consumer-format video cassette recorder new, as far as I know, at any
price-the well made decks are all strictly professional format. You
cannot buy a really well-made 35mm camera anymore, except the M Leica,
and that's been cheapened significantly from early ones. Although much
high end audio equipment has design flaws or is overpriced, it's the
only source of reasonably well built audio equipment suitable for home
use for the most part. (A few pro pieces are suitable for home use, but
relatively few-and much pro equipment today is really prosumer, e.g.
anything from Behringer, Alesis, Mackie, and many products of legit
American companies like Crown.) You cannot buy a portable shortwave
radio as well made as the Zenith Trans-Oceanics(although certain Sonys
and Sangeans do outperform themn in some ways).

It's a long and sad list.