defective Quad 66 cd player

[j.postema]

Hi,

two weeks ago I bought a second hand Quad 66 cd player for 280 euro's. I think that's a lot of money for such an old product, but as I love my (also second hand) Quad 606 MK2 pre and power amp, I wanted to have a cd player that matched visually with the amplifier.

I visited a seller at his home that has good reviews at eBay. I took my own cd with me, but he had the setup (amplifier, Quad cd player and loudspeakers) already playing for demontration. I tested the remote, browsed through the cd, used prev, next, fast forward buttons and everything looked perfect. The player looked in great shape from the outside. He wanted 280 euro's for it as it was in great shape he told me.

Later that night at my friends house I played a cd to compare the player to his Denon player. We both got the impression that the Quad sounded better. (warmer sound, lf extension). But at track #2 there was one short skipping sound to be heard. I checked a second cd and there was suddenly a lot of skipping: like you push the fast forward button on the remote. I checked a fird cd, same problem.

I was disappointed as I thought I did a good test at the sellers place and I phoned him. He told me he was unaware of this problem and had used the player the whole afternoon.

I took the player to my home and checked it with one cd that played perfect: no skipping sounds. The next day I checked a cd of my girlfriend that had bad skipping problems. I tested for about one week and most of my own cd's play perfect but sometimes at seemingly random time's it skips.

I contacted the seller and told him I wanted my money back or change it for a different player as he owns multiple Quad cd players. He replied and told me that he had another Quad 66 cd player which was at the repairman because of a display problem.

I'm wondering what to do next? And what could be the cause? Would it be an easy fix? In the meantime I cleaned the laser lens but it did not solve the problem.

[spendorman]

If this is Quad's first CD player, then I think it's Philips based.

Decades ago I suggested to Ross Walker that they needed a CD player, suggested that even a re badged Philips would be good.

[Macca]

The problem won't be the laser, more likely some sort of component or track going dodgy. It's finding the fault, not fixing it that takes the time and money. Probably best to find another one.

[mr sneff]

I had a Quad 66 CD Player that I bought from Retrotech Audio last year. Great sounding player but, like yours, it skipped. Actually it skipped quite badly on some CDs whilst others played OK. I tried cleaning the lens but it didn't make any difference. I contemplated sending it to Quad for a service, but in the end I sent it back to Retrotech. Their service guy was unable to fix it and they gave me a full refund. Have you contacted your seller, or eBay?

[Barry]

If the seller has a Quad 67 player available, I would recommend you swap yours for that. The seller may want a price adjustment to be made.

[Lawrence001]

Maybe he could agree for his repair man to take a look at yours. Some early Philips transports have servo problems relating to some small capacitor(s) on the transport, it's a relatively easy fix apparently.

Sent from my BLN-L21 using Tapatalk

[j.postema]

If the seller has a Quad 67 player available, I would recommend you swap yours for that. The seller may want a price adjustment to be made.

Thanks for your reply, can you explain why the Quad 67 would be preferable to the 66?

[Barry]

Thanks for your reply, can you explain why the Quad 67 would be preferable to the 66?

It's only what I have read. I own neither so cannot speak from experience; but there was a fair amount of criticism of the 66, which was supposedly and quickly 'put right' with the 67.