I'll try to explain clerly and fast.
I bought a CD, a german designed and built one, Philips transport, Philips Opamps, Burr brown DAC, 20,000uf. It is on spikes with level adjusting. BNC output. I use semibalanced cables with WBT-0150. The CD has a detachable power cord with 3 prong IEC but ends in european type of electrical plug (two round pins). Also there is a Panamax Max 5500. The digital BNC coax output is shorted with a 75 Ohms resistor. (for this purpose I have used the unit with and without this)
The story begins like this:
I plugged it on wednesday to my pre and played ok but the reading altough not erratic was slow...
Next day I tried to play it and no, not possible, it didn't recognized any disc, kept spinning and triying to read TOC (I guess), or in the end it showed NO DISC.
I cleaned the lens yesterday and nothing.
So today I unplugged the unit, place it in a table and inspected it inside, maybe something wrong, but no, altough I confirmed it is a beatifully made machine.
There, with the unit opened I saw with surprise and certain relief that the unit read flawlesly all the CD's everytime. I thought it was then just weird thing before. I closed the unit and placed it again in my system.
After that and expecting to finally hear it playing again, hell again no reading...
I compared what I did in my table versus what I did plugged in my system and I disconnected the IC cables from the pre, and then voila !!!! it was reading perfectly.
I asked myself how a shorted cable (I used these same cables with my former CD player without problem) can cause this kind of error...
Thinking it was a cable fault I replaced it with another, I checked both pairs with multimeter and no problem.... During this cable exchange, the CD was playing, I noted that a kind of jitter or "reading error noise" was overimposing to the audio signal, over the music. I turned off the pre and CD and it read. Mybe just a antenna effect not guilty for the malfunction I described.
I made some tests, but the problem arises from time to time, mainly I correct it turning off the pre and the CD player or disconnecting the cables from pre, start the CD and later plug the cables in.
I also noted that if I lock the barrel to the RCA jack then again noise and later reading errors (not starting up CD or NO DISC recognition) begin.
SO WHAT CAN IT BE ?
The only thing I suspect with my short understanding is maybe some kind of voltage or something is getting into CD from other part and causing errors ?
Maybe RFI but this unit is said to have a RFI rejecting design in the PCB circuit lines.
Maybe it is because of the power cord ? ( a differential voltage) (The original 3 prong IEC to 2 round pins as opposed to the one I am using, 3 to three conductors line, neutral, ground.)
Impedances ?
I do not what the hell to think, this is not esoteric audio but "paranormal audio", the unit is lovely, my pre is flawless, it has worked with a large number of different players so...
Do you have an idea what can it be the cause for this mess ?
Help....
email me to eduardo@armonia-avm.com
or send me your comments by the personal messages system.
