Extremely nervous CD player

[rdpx]

Hi there,

I have recently been reunited with my MARANTZ CD6000OSE KI and when it plays it is lovely but it seems to be incredibly nervous.

When I got it back I noticed it was skipping on a copy of Kind of Blue, and had a google and ended up opening her up and sure enough there was dried up lubricant on the sled rail and the teeth at the end of the rack were slightly gummed up, so I cleaned that all up and relubricated it all with some silicone spray.

Cue Kind of Blue skipping in exactly the same place (and then I noticed its not even that long an album...)

So I cleaned the CD and the skipping went away.

So this evening I was listening to Martha Agerich's Rach 3, and about 45 seconds in to track 4 [about 40m into the CD] it started to skip, then went nuts but soon settled down again having skipped out about 4 minutes of the disc. I cleaned the CD and the same happened.

Next up I pulled out my DVD player and play track 4, and for good measure try it in the BDP. Both play through the track with no worries at all (apart from not sounding anywhere as good as the CDP when it is on song).

I tell you this is really frustrating as I am about to drop some money on cables and if the CDP ain't working then cables are the least of my worries!! :confused:

So I guess my question is, have I got a problem with my CDP that needs to be fixed [and if so what and how can I sort it], or have I just got a nervous CDP :violin: that needs to be fed with brand new discs?


Thanks in advance,

Robert

[struth]

Could be a mixture of thing tbh. I usually prefer to use graphite on the rails. the lens may just need a clean but it may also be losing power'focus with age as well. add to that the cd may not be perfect and you can have trouble. My denon is starting to play up as well and I will be taking it out of service shortly for similar reasons. Picked up another pioneer 717 in black this time and they are more robust. I'd reclean and use a graphite pencil to lube the rails. clean the laser and retry. any more trouble then if you wish to keep it try and find a new laser.

[rdpx]

Could be a mixture of thing tbh. I usually prefer to use graphite on the rails. the lens may just need a clean but it may also be losing power'focus with age as well. add to that the cd may not be perfect and you can have trouble. My denon is starting to play up as well and I will be taking it out of service shortly for similar reasons. Picked up another pioneer 717 in black this time and they are more robust. I'd reclean and use a graphite pencil to lube the rails. clean the laser and retry. any more trouble then if you wish to keep it try and find a new laser.

Thanks Grant.

I cleaned the lens and it was still skipping in the same place which makes me think it could just be a bad disc, or the CDP hates Tchaikovsky.
Then I found out how to put it into SERVICE MODE and let it run diagnostics on itself and no error codes are coming up so I think it is probably the disc.
I ran a thing where it forces the sled out to the end of the track a few times and the CD still skips, but now it only skips a minute off the track, and does it fairly quicky, rather than skittering about like a crazy thing and ending up cutting out 4 or 5 minutes.

So it seems to have improved. I am out of town for ten days from tomorrow, so will see if I get any complaints about it whilst I am away...

R


[PS note to self - if you think your CDP is skipping, first check that you aren't listening to Steve Reich]

[Andrei]

[PS note to self - if you think your CDP is skipping, first check that you aren't listening to Steve Reich]

Nice call! :rfl:

[rdpx]

Picked up another pioneer 717 in black this time...

DVD player - I am guessing you are just using it as a transport outputting to your Alchemy DAC?

Funnily enough I called up a shop that sold both the other day to ask what they thought about the CYRUS CDPs vs the REGA APOLLO-R and instead of trying to sell me one or the other he said I should just keep the Marantz, play it through a REGA DAC, and play all my music from HDDs.

The kids of today....

:whistle:

[rdpx]

UPDATE:

CDP still skipping, though only on scratched discs. On inspection they aren't always that badly scratched though, and it seems to me like it is still being overly nervous. I probably need to pull out an old DVD player and see if they are skipping too, but in the meantime I have a couple of questions:

1. Does it sound like it could be a tired laser? I can get a new laser unit off ebay for under £20 and then either keep unit or sell it on for maybe £150. As it is I don't feel I can sell it honestly.

2. Should a good CD player be able to just power on through scratched discs (obviously thsi may depend on how severe the scratching is). As I understand it the Apollo-R has some kind of buffering thing which is why it takes 20 secs or so to be ready to play, is this to avoid such issues?

Am actually looking for an excuse to get a CYRUS CD8SE2 if I can pick up a cheap one online somewhere, but if I can get this working smoothly again I may well be persuaded to keep it and spend the money somewhere else.

R

[struth]

I would pop the top and clean laser eye with isopropyl and clean and graphite the runners that the laser moves on first. doing that may well cure all ills. if not then the laser will likely be requiring to be changed.r

[rdpx]

I did all that, or very similar...

[struth]

Then the laser is probably on its last legs Robert. Time for a change...................of cd player?:eek:

[rdpx]

Then the laser is probably on its last legs Robert. Time for a change...................of cd player?:eek:
Am watching out for a Cyrus on eBay...

[DSJR]

Despite any upgrades to the player's electronics inside, the mechanism is pure cheap and plastic Philips sadly, or possibly good as replacements should be plentiful and not too expensive. One thing though, some of the circuit boards can suffer dry joints on Philips/Marantz players I found, so might be worth a careful look as some of these mechs seem to last a long time.

[rdpx]

What should I look for? And where? Thanks.

[Audio Advent]

Before all this, one thing not mentioned is the CD drawer belt.

This might not sound like something which will effect play back but I've found it does - if the door doesn't shut properly then the CD doesn't plop on the spindle perfectly, the clamp might not drop on to the CD fully so the CD vibrates more, the sled which holds the mech raises and lowers and a draw which isn't fully closed will effect it's position too. I would check on the slackness of the draw mech rubber band. If it's not been replaced in it's life then I would expect it to have stopped working by now anyway.

It's not too difficult to do: From memory (I replaced one on a CD63 - KI ... ah, I'm thinking of those, not the CD6000! I'm going to guess it's the same though..): eject the CD and then unplug the player so the draw is left out. Pop off the front facia of the draw (normally held on by clips). Open the player's case. Carefully disconnect all the cd-drive's cables (I'm guessing two ribbon cables - careful how these un-clamp and withdraw, don't pull hard, and one set of power wires) and then unscrew the whole drive and mech as one piece (3 or 4 screws). Then withdraw the whole drive backwards and out of the case. The motor and pulley belt which controls the draw mechanism should be easily visible on the underside. I put some grease on the spindle of this too because the one I had vibrated and gave off a terrible whine and squeek.

If you search the internet, you should be able to find the size of the belt you need and I know at least CPC sell lots of sizes of belts but might be expensive with postage for one : hey, why not buy a load and sell the rest to similar CD6000 fans? As you're in London, I seem to remember Cricklewood Electronics in north london sell belts for tape decks and CD players - give them a call.

With the rails, I prefer a gloopy silicone lubricant so that it fill any mis-match between the rail and the guide and so lessens vibration or catching.

Could well be the CD itself though - if GAME is still around and running, they do a walk-in CD/DVD/bluray/computer game repair where they skim a tiny amount off the surface completely getting rid of any normal depth scratches which might cause skipping. Another option could be the ribbon cable to the laser which has a problem at a particular part of the travel?

Personally, other than mech's with a particularly bad reputation, I think the laser itself is rarely the thing to go, more likely something around it. Could be of course that the CD6000 mech is one with a particularly short lived laser?

UPDATE: The often updated and revised and important CD player resource which is http://vasiltech.narod.ru/CD-Player-DAC-Transport.htm (http://vasiltech.narod.ru/CD-Player-DAC-Transport.htm#M) says it is the same mech as the CD 63, CDM12.

If all fails and you like the CD6000, find the cheapest and working player which uses the CDM12 (do a page search on that list above for CDM12) and swap it stright over, perhaps from a plain Marantz CD63 or CD67).

[DSJR]

Good advice above :)

[Ronksley]

I had problems with my CD52 jumping on the first track Worked out it was down to positioning as I had kept moving it round. So might be worht getting out a spirit level and check its on the level.

[awkwardbydesign]

My Meridian 200 transport has decided not to read CDRs. And the laser assembly is pretty much unobtainable!

[The Barbarian]

Before all this, one thing not mentioned is the CD drawer belt.

This might not sound like something which will effect play back but I've found it does - if the door doesn't shut properly then the CD doesn't plop on the spindle perfectly, the clamp might not drop on to the CD fully so the CD vibrates more, the sled which holds the mech raises and lowers and a draw which isn't fully closed will effect it's position too. I would check on the slackness of the draw mech rubber band. If it's not been replaced in it's life then I would expect it to have stopped working by now anyway.



Yep when i was sorting out my old Mission 'DAD7000' i obtained three belts of slightly different diameters. All the belts seemed to do the job of shutting the drawer to but the two fractionally larger belts did not allow the switches to work as they should on the Mech.

[Audio Advent]

My Meridian 200 transport has decided not to read CDRs. And the laser assembly is pretty much unobtainable!

Well..... there are thousands and thousands of mechs of exactly the same type to swap with, loads more mechs which use the same laser assembly (but is apparently fiddly to swap over but do-able). So unobtainable is only true if you're thinking of buying new parts. Spitfire parts are unobtainable but that doesn't stop people embarking on resto projects - anything is possible with willing.

I think you could probably just dial up the laser power slightly you know and get away with that! Might be any caps in the laser power supply board aren't holding as much energy as they used to so it's not receiving all the juice it needs.

[Audio Advent]

Yep when i was sorting out my old Mission 'DAD7000' i obtained three belts of slightly different diameters. All the belts seemed to do the job of shutting the drawer to but the two fractionally larger belts did not allow the switches to work as they should on the Mech.

Surprising how much all these things work together to effect the whole..

(p.s. like your new signature.. hehe)