A Discerning CD player......

[Conchis]

My 'second system' lives in my study. It's a cheap mass market Sony affair which I purchased, iirc, from Tesco around 2005-ish. Since I've had less cause to work in the study over recent years, it's not had much use but when I tried to play some discs on it recently, it seemed to read them for a long time, then the digital display recorded 'No Disc'. I tried this on a few CDs - all rock/pop - with the same result.

Then, I put in a CD of the Takacs Quartet playing Beethoven and, miraculously, I got a time reading and the player deigned to play it.


Wonder what the cause of all this is? Are cheap CD played known to become cranky in later life?

[Dave2002]

Did you leave your study without any heating for a long while? Could be various things - cold, condensation, just dirt on the laser/lens. Does it now work on the other CDs?

I had one brand new CD player years ago which I was going to give as a gift. (Perhaps) Fortunately I unpacked and tested it before passing it on. Didn’t work, tried several things. Then I got a bit more brutal, and probably turned it upside down. I remember getting it to play at about a 30 degree angle, after which I noticed a small piece of packing material fell out. I think that had been obstructing the lens.

I think now you’d got it working, you should keep using it.

[Mal]

My NAD 5420 has been working happily since 1994 as my main CD player, playing almost every day. Not sure how you define cheap, it was considered a good budget system in it's day:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/nad-5425-cd-player

[5425 is 5420 with a remote]

It still sounds better than Amazon Unlimited or Spotify Prime (through a Logitech Squeezebox Touch.) What's your main CD player? How does the Sony compare with your main system when playing the Takacs?

[Conchis]

My NAD 5420 has been working happily since 1994 as my main CD player, playing almost every day. Not sure how you define cheap, it was considered a good budget system in it's day:

https://www.stereophile.com/content/nad-5425-cd-player

[5425 is 5420 with a remote]

It still sounds better than Amazon Unlimited or Spotify Prime (through a Logitech Squeezebox Touch.) What's your main CD player? How does the Sony compare with your main system when playing the Takacs?

My main system is a Cambridge Audio with floor-standing Mordaunt Short speakers. Compared to it, the Sony player is/was somewhat boxy but eminently acceptable for a small room.

I bought the same model for a friend at about the same time. His is still working but then it's had more regular use than mine.

[johnb]

It sounds as though either the laser has deteriorated or the laser lense might be dirty.

If the CD player uses a tray (i.e. isn't a slot loading player) it's worth trying a CD/DVD Lens Cleaner.

(I have a Meridian G92 which has similar symptoms even though it has mostly been used as a DAC/Preamp. Meridian quoted approx £350 for a new drive, excluding carriage!)

[Dave2002]

Is the Sony “spare” system a CD player, or is it a sort of all-in-one affair, or a mini-system? If it’s just a CD player with its own amp you can probably feed the output via a digital optical out, or a coax out, or even just plain analogue out into another amp+speaker system to see if the boxiness is inherent in the player, or in the rest of the system. It could even be something to do with the room size and layout.

[Dave2002]

It sounds as though either the laser has deteriorated or the laser lense might be dirty.

It could well be that, although one other possibility is that the laser read out transducer has become loose on its arm somehow, so that it can’t track anymore. That did happen to one of my players, though it’s not likely in one which has been standing for a long while. I suppose the tracking mechanisms could have become sluggish through lack of use - think of the kind of feedback required to get the laser to track the data spiral. If the system is now working it might be OK from now on as long as it’s used fairly frequently/regularly.

[Conchis]

It sounds as though either the laser has deteriorated or the laser lense might be dirty.

If the CD player uses a tray (i.e. isn't a slot loading player) it's worth trying a CD/DVD Lens Cleaner.

(I have a Meridian G92 which has similar symptoms even though it has mostly been used as a DAC/Preamp. Meridian quoted approx £350 for a new drive, excluding carriage!)

I've used a lens cleaner disc on it, with no result.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Did you leave your study without any heating for a long while? Could be various things - cold, condensation, just dirt on the laser/lens. Does it now work on the other CDs?

These questions occurred to me, too, as I read the OP - the "No Disc" notice appears on my car CD player on particularly cold days, only to vanish once the engine has warmed up.

[pastoralguy]

It sounds as though either the laser has deteriorated or the laser lense might be dirty.

If the CD player uses a tray (i.e. isn't a slot loading player) it's worth trying a CD/DVD Lens Cleaner.

(I have a Meridian G92 which has similar symptoms even though it has mostly been used as a DAC/Preamp. Meridian quoted approx £350 for a new drive, excluding carriage!)

I had a Meridian system which was terrific but, alas, Boothroyd Stuart seemed to loose interest in repairing/servicing their older equipment. I had to send the amp back for repair and when I 'phoned up to ask about its progress the engineer who was working on it told me that they were running out of components since B-S were more interested in producing new equipment than catering to their existing customers. The CD player was terrific but as it became more unreliable I sold the whole lot on eBay and got back what I'd paid for it which I invested in a brand new Quad system.

[Conchis]

These questions occurred to me, too, as I read the OP - the "No Disc" notice appears on my car CD player on particularly cold days, only to vanish once the engine has warmed up.

Actually, yes, I do. I'm out of the house quite a lot and, as I say, I've rarely used the study for the last couple of years. I'll put the heating on this evening and see if it changes anything. :)

[jayne lee wilson]

I've used a lens cleaner disc on it, with no result.

They offer very superficial removal, only occasionally work with such explicit troubles.... if the Sony's underused, get it running with a disc and leave it on repeat for a few hours - see if its reliability improves after that. Test any unplayable discs on your other system; if that works OK, it's the player...

You could go in with cotton bud/isopropyl - a delicate, scary operation, but this can work very well indeed, but only if the laser is easily accessible (it often isn't in Sony transports... whip off the lid and take a look...)

[Dave2002]

Actually, yes, I do. I'm out of the house quite a lot and, as I say, I've rarely used the study for the last couple of years. I'll put the heating on this evening and see if it changes anything. :)

Is that an indication that it's still only the Takács CD which plays?

[Conchis]

Is that an indication that it's still only the Takács CD which plays?

Yes - just tried a couple more, all classical. 'No Disc' was the result each time. And I've got the heating on!

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes - just tried a couple more, all classical. 'No Disc' was the result each time. And I've got the heating on!

Like I said.... get in running... let it play.... if no joy....
kit up and go in with your hands...

Or of course just ignore me again...