John@sri-csl.ARPA (05/01/85)
Some months ago, I gave in to the urge to buy a compact disc player. At the present time, my CD collection is about 40 discs. I have noticed what appears to be a trend regarding disc quality defects and am curious if anyone else has had similar experiences. To be specific, discs produced by Polygram (this includes the DG, Philips, London, Polydor, RSO and Mercury labels) in W. Germany seem to be prone to "skipping" and "getting stuck". (One disc I have endlessly repeats an entire track.) My current return rate (of Polygram discs) is running at about 40 percent. I've not had any problem with any of the discs produced by other manufacturers (Sanyo and CBS/Sony of Japan) I've returned the defective discs to the retailer for exchange and the replacements have always played acceptably. I'm curious if anyone else has experienced similar problems with discs made by Polygram. Or is my player (a Sony D-5 Discman) "excessively" sensitive to minor defects?
jsweet@uci-icsa.ARPA (Jerry Sweet) (05/01/85)
I have the same disc player, but so far no problems with any brand of disc. On the other hand, a friend of mine bought one too, and the thing would refuse to seek to a particular track. Then one day, it decided to start working normally. The D5s do seem unusually subsceptible to any sort of vibration (that pretty much rules out taking them along in any American-built vehicle :-) ). This doesn't address your basic suspected problem with particular brands of discs, but does indicate that perhaps you shouldn't rule out fundamental or transitory defects in the Sony D5 player. -jns
hsu@cvl.UUCP (Dave Hsu) (05/02/85)
> > To be specific, discs produced by Polygram (this includes the DG, Philips, > London, Polydor, RSO and Mercury labels) in W. Germany seem to be prone > to "skipping" and "getting stuck". (One disc I have endlessly repeats > an entire track.) My current return rate (of Polygram discs) is running > at about 40 percent. I've not had any problem with any of the > discs produced by other manufacturers (Sanyo and CBS/Sony of Japan) ... > I'm curious if anyone else has experienced similar problems with discs > made by Polygram. Or is my player (a Sony D-5 Discman) "excessively" > sensitive to minor defects? No, you're not alone. So far, I've experienced two dead London recordings... and it didn't matter what player I used. They were equally dead on my D5, my dad's Sanyo, and a friend's unit. And yes...all the Japanese discs have been flawless so far. Question: Aside from the obvious "Japanese discs have a clear, raised hub and come packaged in 8-prong jewel-boxes while German discs are uniformly aluminized, flat, and come in 6-prong jewel-boxes (with that 'stamped hole' look)", I have a disc stamped CSR (is this CBS-Sony? it looks like them) with a (poorly-designed) three prong jewel-box. What other designs are in use now? -dave
malis@BBNCCS.ARPA (Andrew Malis) (05/06/85)
I had a similar "skipping" and "repeating" problem which turned out to be in my CD player, the Yamaha CD-2. I took it in to the shop and they realligned the optical tracking mechanics. Since then, I haven't had any problems at all, on any discs. You may want to try this with your Discman. Andy
MRC@SIMTEL20.ARPA (Mark Crispin) (05/06/85)
My experience is similar to John's. I have a Sony D-5 and a Sanyo something-or-other. I found that the amount of skipping on the D-5 is directly proportional to: (1) how strong the batteries are, (2) how horizontal the CD player is. A D-5 held in its carrying case with batteries which are about halfway towards dead performs less well than when it is placed on a table with the AC adapter. Most of my discs are Polygram-made, so I can't say for sure how they compare with others. I use my D-5 all the time, and go through batteries about 1 set a week even though I only use the batteries when walking to lunch. -------