CD player repair

[wws944]

I have been collecting parts to do a factory "CD player add" option. I now have three junkyard players, none of which worked. (One of them did produce a free OJays CD when I tried it. :-p It came out of a trashed Riviera.) So I decided to send the one with the best cosmetics and correct year to M&R to get fixed. Total turnaround, including shipping between California and Michigan, was a bit over a week. Cost was $175 + $10 s/h.

Works great - at least with the kids old Scooby Doo CD that was laying on the corner of my workbench. Next up will be some Keith Emerson. "Take a Pebble" has been a traditional "first test cut" of mine for about the last 35 years. (We'll just forget about the Scooby Doo CD actually being first...) Have not tried CD-R or CD-RW yet.

I asked the fellow at M&R if he could add an AUX jack to the front of the player. He couldn't/wouldn't. And I dissected one of the bad drives far enough to see that, although it would be easy to hook into the audio lines, there isn't much space to drill the hole for a jack. Since I have also collected a spare harness - I may eventually make an external plug-n-play patch cable to redirect the audio lines.

[Guest Richard D]

For first play I recommend Emerson Lake & Palmer Brain Salad Surgery, if you were born after the 1970's try "Toy Matinee" First cut.

[KDirk]

If it's gotta be ELP (and why not?), I would humbly suggest Karn Evil #9, second impression.

"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends; we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside."

That pretty well summarizes the Reatta experience.

Now I just need to figure out the part about the gypsy queen in a glaze of Vaseline performing on the guillotine. Or, maybe I don't want to know after all.

By the way, did M&R do the upgrade to play CD-R(W)'s? I have been told on occasion that they do this on a factory CD rebuild. I don't know what exactly is involved, either a difference in calibrating the optical pickup, or maybe the replacement pickup block is already designed to play recordable media, whereas the original 1990 ones didn't.

KDirk

[Ronnie]

If I'm gonna test and tune on the stereo with a CD, I usually start with "Rare Earth's, Get Ready" Makes your teeters tweet and your woofers woof. It's 21 minutes long and gives you the opportunity to evaluate lows, highs, muted and loud sections. It's got it all.

I have Brain Salad Surgery and I like to run a needle through the vinyl every now and then too.

[Guest steveskyhawk]

I recommend Warren Zevon's " Lawers, Guns and Money"

"I went home with the waitress, the way I always do. How was I to know, she was with the Russians too?"

[wws944]

The first ELP album was the first thing I played on my first "good" stereo back in the mid-70s. "Lucky Man" is always great for testing dynamics and bass. But I've always enjoyed the piano portions of "Take a Pebble". Emerson totally owned the keyboards back in the 70s/80s. So anytime I reinstall/upgrade something, ELP #1 is the first serious thing that gets played.

Kinda funny - there is a place in "Take a Pebble" where I could never get things to track right. Went through a number of cartridge technologies over the years (e.g., Shure V15III, Ortofon MC, Decca...) and never solved it. Later bought the CD, and guess what? Same problem existed on the CD. Obviously the problem was way back on the master tape.

Love Karn Evil #9 too. But I never did buy the CD of BSS. Probably should.

On the CD-R/CD-RW part: I messed up and did not ask the fellow at M&R about it. I did ask him if he "threw away the guts and replaced them". He responded that no, he just rebuilt what was there. Will test it one of these days.

[wws944]

One other thing: I have two players from 1990 (part #16085394), and one from a 1992 (part #16161794). While externally they look identical, internally there was some redesign. The one I sent to M&R was one of the 1990 drives. I hope that I didn't make a mistake by not sending in the 1992 drive. Like, if the newer circuitry would have let him do a better refurb. But the faceplate cosmetics on it has some scratches on it compared to the other two. Interestingly, the later drive also has a glossy finish on the faceplate, compared to a matte finish on the earlier two. Subtle. But in the very unlikely event that I would ever enter a 400 point judging, I wouldn't want to lose that point.

[Guest Richard D]

I had my stereo, an AM/FM/CD model from a Buick GN (looks factory) repaired, the cd would not read a disc. When I got it the cd plays factory cd's fine, cdr's most of the time and will not play cdrw. My repair was done by Dr Don's, $165.00 got it back in 4 days. I was told that to have it read cdr's and cdrw's would cost another $200.00. I declined, it does play cdr's I make on my audio cd recorder.

Richard

[KDirk]

Richard-

Interesting that extra $200 for the CD-R upgrade. Guessing it involves installing all new optical block w/capability to read recordable media. Since this limitation is a function of how much of the laser is reflected back from the disc surface, and factory pressings reflect the most, followed by CD-R and finally CD-RW, the reliability of playback decreases in order of the three media types respectively.

Obviously, the optics and related circuitry need to be more sensitive to do the job right w/ CD-R's and even more so still to read CD-RW's. Just what they are doing to gain this improvement in old (essentially first generation player technology from the late 80's/early 90's) is what I would really like to know.

Anyway, another suggestion for testing a new/repaired stereo setup would be some classic Supertramp. Specifically, I like to use these as test cuts (in no particular order of significance) on new or newly repaired gear:

Bloody Well Right

From Now On

It's Raining Again

Take the Long Way Home

Goodbye Stranger

School

The Logical Song

Fool's Overture

I find the above cuts to have not only a wide range of dynamics (and exceptionally well articulated vocals IMO), but the original studio album versions are very well engineered

and lend themselves to being good candidates for critical test listening. And don't overlook the fact that they are great music too.

KDirk

[padgett]

Back in the day of vinyl the opening bars of "Also Sprach Zarathusta" from "2001, a Space Odessey" soundtrack was the standard. It had a 16 cps (double low C) sustained organ note.

Note: Hz is for electrical waves. CPS is correct for sound.

[Guest Richard D]

And of course almost anything by Steely Dan for the clean, high dynamic range recording. The first full digital was Donald Fagen The Nightfly recorded in 1981/82

Sorry for the Off topic but I used to work in the music recording industry, can't help it.

[wws944]

I have both Supertramps Even in the Quietest Moments and Steely Dans Ajia on LP but not CD. (My CD collection is embarrassingly small. Not that my LP collection is that big either.) I think I will try burning a CD-R of one and a CD-RW of the other. Another project for another day though.

Richard: When you say some CD-Rs work and some don't, is it a function of the burner you used? Speed? Or perhaps brands of media? I would be using the HP dvd1270i in my linux machine.

[Ronnie]

If you are going to transfer from LP to CD you might want to take a look at Goldwave Audio Editor. It is great for removing pops, click and other unwanted noise before recording to CD. There is an older, FREE version on the Internet that I use that works really well.

GoldWave - Audio Editor, Recorder, Converter, Restoration, & Analysis Software

[DAVES89]

I find up in dis neck of da woods dere hey to play the local favorite "In heaven there is no beer" by the locally famous "2 Hits and a Miss" Ifin dat sounds good then everthin sounds good...

Whadda say dere hey?

Polka all the way baby! lol

I actually don't listen to that I really prefer '60s thru '80s Rock...

[KDirk]

Props to Ronnie for suggesting Goldwave. An excellent piece of software that I will also highly recommend. As far as certain CD-Rs not working on older players while some others do, often it is attributable to "overburn".

This is common now, as most burners support recording data into an area of the disc surface that was not permitted in the original compact disc specs of the mid-1980's. Officially speaking, CD's hold 74 minutes of stereo audio (or 650 MB's of digital data). Cd's are read from the center (inner ring) towards the outside edge, the inverse of LP's.

The table of contents (TOC) or directory of the disc is stored in the lowest sectors of the disc, nearest the inner hub. The data is then stored in concentric rings of "pits" etched into the surface of the reflective substrate radiating outward. A "pit" results in no laser reflection, or binary 0. Absence of a pit reflects the laser back to the pickup resulting in a binary 1. Note that if the portion of the disc surface containing the TOC is physically damaged, the disc is ruined as it will never read without first loading and verifying the TOC.

Nowadays, almost all burners and most blank media support recording much closer to the outer edge [this is the overburn] than originally intended resulting in a gain of 6 additional minutes of stereo audio or another 50MB of capacity. Sometimes it can even be stretched beyond even the 80 min/700MB mark. The problem lies in the fact that the optical pickup in a cd player is on a "sled" that moves in and out to track the data on the disc. Many older players (prior to the popularity of PC based CD burners) had a physical limitation on how far out the sled will move to read the surface of the disc.

If the player can only move the optics out far enough to read up to the 74 minute/650MB area of the disc, anything beyond that will be unreadable or ignored. Usually this would result in the loss of only that portion of the data beyond that point in the disc; maybe one or two tracks. However, some players will not start playback if they detect an error of this sort, and thus the whole disc becomes unusable, if only in that player.

Another fact regrading CD's is that the geometry of the disc dictates that data are more difficult to track (and correct errors on) the further out towards the outside edge they are recorded. This has to do with sector sizes and also how much wobble may be present in the transport causing tracking errors, and the inability of the player to compensate with error correction algorithms. This is why many times the higher numbered tracks on an audio CD will not play reliably while the lower numbered ones will.

I realize this is only tangentially on-topic, but thought I would post it as it may be helpful to those wondering why they are having problems with their older CD players.

KDirk

[wws944]

Update: The CD player is now installed and works great. First CD played was ELP (as mentioned above.) Also played some Tommy.

Also tried a CD-R. The player spends a bit of time trying to figure it out, but eventually ejects it. It was a 700 mb disk. So perhaps, as Kevin mentions above, it was not recorded for compatibility with older CD drives which have a 650 mb limit.

Now that the head unit has been rebuilt and the CD player installed, the stock system sounds pretty good. But I did detect some low bass buzzing from the speakers. I know at least one of the rear speakers has some foam rot. Maybe more of them do too. Dug out the old Bass Mekanik CD that has some test tones and sweeps, which should be useful for finding out what is going on. If the front woofers are bad, I should be able to just re-foam them. Unfortunately, I have not found anyone who has replacement 4x10 surrounds.

Edited August 18, 2010 by wws944 (see edit history)

[Jim]

I have about 25 CD players on my shelf that did not work.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to to some testing and repairing and I now have 3 excellent working original CD players available.

Jim

[padgett]

I have three or four, know Richard and Harry have some, must be some in Arizona and California. Maybe we should investigate just using the case and doing a full replacement of all the gutz. Have on my list to develop a retension that does not require removal of all the trim to get to it out (but not very high).

[wws944]

I am thinking of salvaging the sockets off the back of one of my bad units. I want to use them as part of some sort of 'plug n play' A/B adapter cable for an AUX input. Has anyone done this yet?

Edited August 19, 2010 by wws944 (see edit history)

[Jim]

Each time I test CD players I have to get out my whole speaker/radio bench test setup. I have thought of many times, but haven't done it yet, pulling the connectors on the rear of the CD player in my wifes car, splicing in another set of connectors and then spare the extra set under her console or somewhere else. Then I could just, at the remote location, unplug the wires going to her normal CD and plug in the CD I want to test.

Too much to do and so little time.

[wws944]

The connectors for the player look like regular Molex fare - but with (easily ground off) keys. So it shouldn't be too hard to make up some sort of plug-n-play A/B aux interface. One would have hoped a company like Scosche or PIE would have already done this - as the same basic CD player setup is used in a number of other Buick/Olds/Pontiac applications of the time. But even so, I guess it is a relatively small market.

I need to take a trip over to one of the (few remaining) local electronics parts surplus places and see what they have.

[harry yarnell]

My perinial question as an electronic tech: what really goes wrong with these players?

[Guest Richard D]

I have three or four, know Richard and Harry have some, must be some in Arizona and California. Maybe we should investigate just using the case and doing a full replacement of all the gutz. Have on my list to develop a retension that does not require removal of all the trim to get to it out (but not very high).

It would be pretty hard to find replacement gutz where everything would line up. I have gone as far as replacing the laser diode, lens and pick up assembly from a working unit and the failure mode remains the same. It trys then displays err. and ejects the disc. We should all look at U-Pick yards for an all in one unit like I found, it plays most CDR's I recorded on a Philips audio disc recorder from analog vinyl or another CD. Will not play CDRWs. I know these were used in Buick GNs and Typhoons and Slycones plus others, I saw one on ebay awhile back but it was from a Pontiac and had orange backlights and display.

[Guest Mc_Reatta]

The LEDs get too dirty to illuminate or read accurately, or fail from age/heat.

The arm they travel on has mechanical issues preventing it from moving in and out smoothly and staying in proper alignment.

That's assuming that the CD spins up when inserted and it trys to play.

Plenty of other needed functions to make it work and any of them could die and prevent it from functioning. CD sensing circuit, insert/eject system, power supply, signal processing circuit, logic control circuit etc.

It may not br worth the time and effort to try to repair a drive if a whole new player can be bought and installed in the old case cheaper.

Hard part would be figuring out how to connect up the power, logic, and signal wires properly to the new parts.

Doubt that Delco used the same standard interfaces that the PC world used at that time.

In concept the CD player in a 90s PC is doing the same things as the one in a Reatta, just talking to a different computer processor over a different bus.

[wws944]

All three of my drives can spin up a CD. But all of them (prior to sending the one to M&R) would fail presumably trying to read the TOC. They eventually time-out, eject the disk, and display "ERROR" on the display.

Maybe it is just a dirty laser. Someday will have to tear one apart and see.

On the interfaces bit, I have no idea. As an aside, we have a Sony DVD/VHS combo box. When the DVD drive failed in it, I opened it up and found that it used a standard IDE drive! Found one on ebay for a few bucks and it works perfectly again.

Edited August 20, 2010 by wws944 (see edit history)

[Guest Mc_Reatta]

If only Delco would use a standart IDE drive in their radios.

[padgett]

In 1990 we were still using floppies.

[wws944]

Finally got around to taking a photo or two, though the sun was a bit low. I have a black Reatta CD player bezel. However for grins, I put in the Riviera fake wood dash kit. Still not sure if I like it with the red interior or not. What do you guys think?

[padgett]

BTW when I recorded audio CDs I just used the XP burner and 800 MB CD-Rs. No one told me there would be a problem so they played just fine.