Clean CD Won't Play in My Yamaha CD Player, Plays Fine on Laptop Drive

Alright, enough Bieber ribs. Let's keep it technical.

-Capt. Cold Nose

 

One of my CD players refuses to recognise one particular pressed CD which plays perfectly on all other machines. Maybe there is a minute scratch or error on the TOC area of the CD (which is in the innermost "grooves") and that particular player can't cope with it.

 

Does the disc spin up? or just 'sit' and the machine acts like no CD is even inserted?
I would guess if it acts like no CD is inserted, that the spindle hole on the CD is a tiny smigin' too small So the player cannot even start it spinning. (Where in other players the spindle grabber may be that tiny bit smaller.

On the other hand, if the CD spins up but the machine can never find the start. Then it would be the start track is either a millionth of an inch 'too far' off, or some such anomaly your Yamaha cannot compensate for.

I have a few discs which will not play in one machine or another. I can ALWAYS make a CD-r which will play fine.
I even just stick the CD-r on top of the regular CD in the case to store tham.

 

Hey George

One of the sort of interesting things I discovered in the course of ripping more than 10,000 CD's was that some could be read perfectly by one drive but not another while others could not be read perfectly by the one drive but could be read perfectly by the other. The CD's might also appear to be perfect, and new; it made no difference whether they had scratches. There was also no defect in the players.

Anyhow, I'd make a rip or copy of the CD that wouldn't play, just in case. But I doubt there's anything wrong with it. Most likely it's just the case that for some highly technical, obscure reason it and the particular player that won't play it don't "match."

 

Interesting. Well, if it acted like no CD was inserted, it wouldn't spin a bit, then force open the drawer. (the latter has never happened to me with ANY CD)

 

Thanks, I discovered the same problem with another CD today.

I put the CD in (no scratches on it at all) and press play, the CD player spins about for awhile, then the drawer opens automatically.

After a few tries, I get the CD to work, but soon after it stops working and then later works. Any idea what this is, guys?

The CD in question is a rare one, so I want to get it to work - every time. (It's part of a 5 disc set and the other 4 CDs work perfectly fine.

 

You are asking us to give you bad news???

 

I am asking for advice (or folks experience) with regards to this situation.

 

A pattern of failures indicates in most cases a problem with the laser or the drive. Maybe the problem can be fixed just by cleaning perhaps it's more serious. Build quality of CD players has gone down steadily from the 1990s. You can't extrapolate reliability from those models to more recent models. I hope I'm wrong.

 

Thanks, Mr. Bass. So far it's only 2 CDs out of 10,000 so I am hoping it's just the CDs.

 

The two discs that read intermittently may have a slight burr or extrusion on the hub. There are some cases the disc hub size is out of tolerance, a bit larger or smaller. On some players this isn't an issue, for others it may be regardless of quality and cost. If the CD isn't centered (larger hub) or fails to seat on the platter (hub too small and the disc wobbles) then the laser may not be able to read the TOC (table of contents) Reloading sometimes will be successful, either the disc is better centered, or doesn't get hung up on the player spindle.

Most players can tolerate some runout or wobble (disc slightly off-center, or slightly warped) but others more finicky.

Check the discs for any burrs or any excess plastic in the hub area. Also check the CD player turntable platter for any foreign debris, and with a Q tip, clean the lens with dilute isopropyl alcohol. The laser can usually tolerate quite a lot of dust, since it is out of its focus distance, but depends on the kind of dust... if the particles are too opaque, the lens can not see through that. You may want to check each disc under magnification. You'd be surprised what you didn't catch with the unassisted eye. There sometimes can be embedded particles in the plastic, or a radial scratch from manufacture, or scratched by improper loading in the player. Such scratches can be very "clean" and hard to see. If there is anything foreign on the discs, it can be buffed out with 3M Finesse-it II, (o5928) and smooth microfiber, not the "terry cloth" stuff.

 

There are some CDs that are just badly manufactured. The CD/DVD Sony editions of the core Jimi Hendrix Experience albums being a case in point. 2/3 refused to play at all.

 

I am getting more and more CDs that have trouble getting read by my player, about 1 out of every 50 or so. When the CD is inserted, I hear the player trying to read the CD, but it gives up after about 5 seconds or so and then "OPEN" reads in the player, I hear what sounds like a skidding sound as the CD hits the platter and the drawer pops back open (though sometimes the drawer stays closed and OPEN remains on the display. I find that if I keep trying (turning off the power and/or reinserting the CD all over again), eventually it gets read and can then play.

1. Does this suggest my player needs to be cleaned? If so, please tell me how I can do it myself?

2. Or does this suggest my player is on the way out?

Thanks in advance.

 

That is exactly how the laser on my old Hitachi started dying. Eventually it became impossible to listen any CD. Sorry to say it, but I am pretty sure your lazer starts going... 6 years is not much though... Do you listen a lot?

 

I've got one regularly pressed CD (Junko & Kylie Minoise - Nature - Dirter Promotions DPROMCD 102) that won't play on any CD or DVD player I've tried it on, and actually freezes on my Oppo BDP 105 D BluRay player without making a sound. I actually have to shut the whole thing off before it even lets me eject the unplayable disc. It plays just fine on my MacBook Pro, though.

 

From Yamaha:

"You should never physically clean the laser lens of any Yamaha optical based player because this type of cleaning can damage or scratch the actual lens, causing constant skipping and even mis-tracking of the CD/LD or DVD player."

So you are going to be forced to take it in for servicing. If you have played it heavily it probably is a hardware failure of some kind. See my posts above. Reliability and build quality of digital products is going down not up in my experience and that opinion is widely shared. I would recommend getting older Sony CD players cheap and just discarding when they fail. Or you will have to move up to Esoteric.

 

Thanks for sharing that. If I hadn't opened up my old Yamaha (almost the same player, just an older model) and cleaned the lens before (with great results), I would have just bought a new player tomorrow and been out $325. As it stands, I decided to open this player and clean the lens. I closed it and it now reads EVERY CD it hadn't read over the last 6 months or so!!!

 

You need to get in touch with Yamaha then because I just quoted from their website. Glad it worked. It's hard to tell with such directions but they either may know something or may figure the odds of something going wrong are too high for them to take responsibility. If you took my other advice though you would have only been out $75 or so and gotten better sound probably with an older Sony SACD/CD player. Regards.

 

Way to go! Hopefully it will be good for another 6 years.

 

Thanks! That would be marvelous!!