Philips CD Recorder Failure......

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by QuestionMark?, Nov 24, 2015.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Well i work it out at 50 hours for 400.00 which is seems a bit of a rip off.
    Admittadly it did it's job.But, in retrospect i just wish i had made it churn out more discs.
     
  2. QuestionMark?

    QuestionMark? 4TH N' GOAL Thread Starter

    Location:
    The End Zone
    That's not too shabby, but that's not my point. I don't think these machines are dead. They have just stop reading discs for some reason. One of my Philips would not read a disc about a year ago so I unplugged it set it aside. A couple of days ago I put 30 brand new discs in it. It failed about 20 times and then BAM, it worked. I proceeded to make an entire comp of 27 tracks, finalized it and played it in my car. Perfect. If it was dead, how did it do that?

    I am also using the Maxell CD-R's they stock at Walgreen's. They always worked for me going back years. A friend of mine uses the white faced ones he finds online, I forget the name, but he sent me one to try and it did not work. I think they are pretty expensive so I don't want to go and buy a batch that might not work. I would really like to know where FunkyNut finds those Phillips blue faced ones he mentioned. Anybody know?
     
  3. FunkyNut

    FunkyNut Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicagoland
    I haven't a clue, like I said it was years ago. I do remember I searched high and low and found some mom and pop type shop on-line. If you find some, please post here where you found them. I'd appreciate it! At the rate I'm going I doubt I'll need more but it would be nice to know just in case.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2015
    QuestionMark? likes this.
  4. kevinsinnott

    kevinsinnott Forum Coffeeologist

    Location:
    Chicago, IL USA
    Let me share a way to make this work. I hadn't time to read through all the posts, just enough to identify the problem you're having. Forgive me if someone else has already posted this solution.

    Take one of the discs you know works, and be sure not to record on it. Especially don't finalize it. Now, place it in there and let it go through its initialization process so that it's ready to record. Now, carefully pry open the drawer without pressing eject. Replace your initializing disc with any other blank disc. It should work fine.

    I had to do this when the first non-audio blanks came out and I couldn't find the audio dedicated discs. I've made many discs this way. It might cause some premature wear on your drawer, but it's worked for me and my recorder still works, although to be honest, I rarely use it any more.
     
    QuestionMark? likes this.
  5. tootull

    tootull Looking through a glass onion

    Location:
    Canada
    My TDK recorder had the same type of problem. The fix was holding in the power button while unplugging. Plugged it back in while pressing the power button and it reset.
     
  6. QuestionMark?

    QuestionMark? 4TH N' GOAL Thread Starter

    Location:
    The End Zone
    I played around a little with a sharpie and got a disc that was previously recognized as not recordable to be recognized as recordable. I tried to get another one to do that and in the process I realized that the disc are encrypted in different places. So I went and dug out an old 80 minute Maxell that I previously recorded on. The earlier ones had very little encrypted numbers and letters compared to the newer ones. I can't help but think the newer ones are encrypted to fail. Why? Maybe to get people to buy a new machine and more expensive blank discs. Money is a good motivator. Anyway, I'm going to keep playing around with these and see what happens. If anyone else plays around with their decks and discs and makes any discovery, please share. Thanks!
     
    alexpop likes this.
  7. Linto

    Linto Mayor of Simpleton

    My Traxaudio 900 CDR did exactly the same.
    I rang up the company - they had no recollection of even making it.
    Now my 3rd choice back up CD player
     
  8. tootull

    tootull Looking through a glass onion

    Location:
    Canada
    http://www.justanswer.com/electroni...x-digital-audio-cd-recorder-no.html#re.v/378/
    Customer Question
    I have a TDK DA 5900 4x Digital audio cd recorder which no longer will record vinyl or cassettes. It still plays CD's but won't record.

    Answer: Please PRESS AND HOLD THE POWER BUTTON WHILE unplugging the unit. Wait for at least 120 seconds to let the internal CPU reset. Then plug it back in and see if it starts up and works properly.
     
    alexpop likes this.
  9. QuestionMark?

    QuestionMark? 4TH N' GOAL Thread Starter

    Location:
    The End Zone
    I can't get this to work with mine but I'm gonna keep trying that. Thanks!
     
    tootull likes this.
  10. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    As William Shakespeare said 'perseverance is a great virtue'. :)
     
    QuestionMark? likes this.
  11. QuestionMark?

    QuestionMark? 4TH N' GOAL Thread Starter

    Location:
    The End Zone
    I found an old blank Sony CD-R AUDIO 80 minute disc last night. It is one of the colored ones that came in a slim case the same color as the disc. Put it in the machine and it was instantly recognized as recordable. Here is a machine that I left for dead a long time ago and it's alive and kicking! I'm very happy about that but I'm a little disturbed at the industry. Is this an intentional money grab? I do believe that so many people did just what I did. Gave up and gave it a good burial. There is no doubt to me that the discs have been made to not work anymore. I used the Maxell's for years and years. They always worked. Now they don't. I almost went online and bought those expensive discs that were about 2.50 apiece and you had to buy 50. I did go on eBay and bought a used Philips 870 after I considered going out and buying a new one. It came to me with the same problem my 765 machine had. It wouldn't recognize a recordable disc. I contacted the seller and he refunded my money. I believe he either didn't know how to check the record function or knew that the record function wasn't working and thought someone might just want a CD player. Either way, it arrived as just another Philips left for dead. It was when playing with these two that I discovered after popping in 30 discs in each that it would read a couple. Moral of the story: Don't give up on your CD recorder!
     
  12. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    i believe the 880 had better spec when I was shopping. That saying, in regards to blank discs its T-UP very hard to find one the recorder will accept. Ive tried the ole stick a good disc in pull it ..insert 'new brand" and voila. Always get worried with pulling the tray out like that> anyway ' think I was successful once.
     
    QuestionMark? likes this.
  13. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    I started out with a Philips CD Recorder back in the late 90s, my first experience with recording onto CDs. It was one of those 870's I believe, that used the special Music discs, but had that drawer trick where you could initialize a Music disc and then swap in a regular computer CD-R of the same length and make your recording. You couldn't do multiple sessions on that disc though. If you stopped, you had to finish it while the disc remained inside, or finalize it then and there.

    About three or four years ago, I bought a bunch of CD-R music discs from Maxell, and they wouldn't work in the Philips. I think I determined that the maximum speed on these newer discs was faster than it had been before and the Philips just choked on them. I got one more bunch of slower discs to work one last time before the unit began to fail entirely. It was on its last legs anyway - I'd lost the remote in a move, so I tossed it out.

    On advice here at this forum, I bought a Tascam "professional" unit and am using that as my home CD-Recorder. But really, I don't use the Tascam for mastering CD-Rs, but rather I use it to record an LP side or 45 or anything in the analog realm to a CD-RW, then rip that stuff as WAV files into the computer and use the computer software to clean things up and write them out to CD-R. The Tascam has worked like a champ on any kind of disc.

    Harry
     
    Shak Cohen and QuestionMark? like this.
  14. Robin L

    Robin L Musical Omnivore

    Location:
    Fresno, California
    I've had two CD recorders, both failed. Meanwhile, handheld recorders capable of High Rez recording are on the scene. I use a Tascam DR 40, record in 24 bit, edit on the computer with Audacity and Click Repair, burn via I-Tunes. Much better results.
     
    QuestionMark? and kevinsinnott like this.
  15. ServingTheMusic

    ServingTheMusic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SoCal
    Playing devil's advocate: Honestly, why would you want these pieces of junk around anyway when you can buy a flash recorder
    that can record in high resolution that will utterly demolish any recording these decks can make?

    I have owned every type of consumer digital recording device ever. from half a dozen CD-R decks to DAT to DSD recorders.

    Don't waste your time.
     
    Robin L, MrRom92 and QuestionMark? like this.
  16. QuestionMark?

    QuestionMark? 4TH N' GOAL Thread Starter

    Location:
    The End Zone
    I have it around because I bought it back in the 90's. It has always been nice to throw a record onto a disc and play it in the car or send an LP to a friend that I'd like him to hear. Easy enough and cheap enough to do.
     
    Shak Cohen likes this.
  17. ServingTheMusic

    ServingTheMusic Forum Resident

    Location:
    SoCal
    I hear ya, but it sure is a lot easier to plug in a Korg or Tascam recorder and not worry about screwing up blanks. Plus in a few minutes
    you can edit on a computer to split tracks, apply tags, apply gain, normalize, etc Plus it will sound way way closer to the original LP. I had two Phillips decks.
    They were horribly unreliable and the recording quality was just ok. Not bad for digital to digital dubs.
     
    Robin L and QuestionMark? like this.
  18. QuestionMark?

    QuestionMark? 4TH N' GOAL Thread Starter

    Location:
    The End Zone
    So many people have told me about the "open the door" trick. I wonder if this didn't lead to the re-design of the blank discs. I wasn't able to do it with the 765 and I never heard anyone talk about it before. It's easy to do with the 870 but it seems like that machine is all but useless now. They had a design flaw in the machine and maybe they corrected it by making it obsolete. I still believe the discs were made to fail! If that is the case, that is a major fraud by the industry.
     
    Deano6 likes this.
  19. gregorya

    gregorya I approve of this message

    As William Shakespeare might have said "peradventure thou can fix it, or peradventure 'tis out-breathed... I perpend thine engine hath expired"

    ;)
     
    Last edited: Nov 27, 2015
    Robin L and QuestionMark? like this.
  20. QuestionMark?

    QuestionMark? 4TH N' GOAL Thread Starter

    Location:
    The End Zone
    I'm having some fun playing around here. If you own a Philips 870 that won't read a recordable disc and you want to use it, try this, put two discs in and close the drawer. It seems to read it and then you can open the drawer and take one out. It's worked for me a couple of times now. :righton:
     
    gregorya likes this.
  21. gregorya

    gregorya I approve of this message

    Try yelling at it... :)
     
    QuestionMark? likes this.
  22. Shak Cohen

    Shak Cohen Forum Resident

    Location:
    United Kingdom
    You guys should've bought a Pioneer. I pulled out my 1999 PDR-509 out of storage to dub myself a CD of new Beatles remixes from the 1+ BluRay. Worked perfectly, using Maxell XLII Music gold discs, which I got from an eBay seller at 20p each.:righton:
     
    QuestionMark? and BGLeduc like this.
  23. QuestionMark?

    QuestionMark? 4TH N' GOAL Thread Starter

    Location:
    The End Zone
    Just for the sake of anyone that has read this thread or searches in the future for help with these CD recorders I'd like to leave some info.

    I put a blank recordable disc in my Philips 765 and the player would not read it as recordable. I put another blank on top of it and closed the drawer and it read it as recordable. Since the drawer on this player can't be pulled open I decided to try to record with both discs in the player. To my surprise I recorded an entire comp and finalized it. I put it in my Oppo and it played perfectly. In the Philips 870 you can do the same thing. In that one you can pull the drawer open and put a regular non-recordable disc in and record on it. I do not have any idea of the technology going on here and why this would work. Is it the weight or thickness of the newer blanks? I don't know, but I'm using these decks that were headed for the trash heap a week ago. I know most here would consider these players as junk but I'm sure that together they retailed for at least 1200 dollars when purchased. I don't believe the industry would have the right to change the software to disable the record function. So, if you have one or see one at the Goodwill for a few bucks it may be worth a shot at revival.
     
    forthlin likes this.
  24. HGN2001

    HGN2001 Mystery picture member

    The "drawer" trick worked because it tricked the machine. Standard CD-R blanks are only different from Music CD-R blanks in that they don't have a special code embedded on them. The Philips and other standalone CD recorders were made to look for that code. If the disc didn't have it, than it wouldn't record on that disc. The theory was that the manufacturer of the discs and the buyer of said disc had paid a higher price that went to the recording industry to "pay" for the piracy they knew would take place.

    What the "drawer trick" did was allow you to put a recordable "music" CD-R in the recorder and let it read it's code and go into a "ready to record" mode. Then by pulling out the drawer with your fingers, you could swap out that music disc and swap in a standard CD-R (known as computer discs) and then proceed with your recording.

    This technique was valuable to those of is with the Philips 870 recorders because it allowed us to save some money. "Music" CD-R's were a LOT more expensive back around the turn of the century. You could by a 10 or 25-pack of regular computer CD-Rs for just a few bucks, but you'd find that retailers (and the recording industry) were gouging on the "Music" CD-R's by charging $5 or even $8 for a SINGLE DISC.

    That rendered the whole idea of making a recording almost moot. If a blank disc cost $8, then why would I try to copy another disc when I could buy one? At least that was what the industry wanted you to think. When I first bought a few blank discs for my new recorder, I was totally devastated that technology would allow me to record onto a CD, but it was too expensive. Then I read about the drawer trick - and it worked! Now all I needed was a couple of Music discs lying around and I could do the actual recording on the cheaper computer discs.

    Soon blank discs, regular AND music, became plentiful enough that the prices fell in line. The music discs were a little more expensive, but not prohibitively so. And now we've gone full circle and once again, the music discs aren't as easy to find - simply because of the lack of demand.

    Harry
     
    Shak Cohen and QuestionMark? like this.
  25. QuestionMark?

    QuestionMark? 4TH N' GOAL Thread Starter

    Location:
    The End Zone
    Nice post! The only thing is that while you can now go out and buy blank discs for much less they don't work. That ain't right! If I go buy some blanks they should work. I should not have to search high and wide for a disc that will work. I'm paying the royalties and not getting what I paid for!
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine