[shep]

Tried this in another circle. Deafening silence. Simple question: I have a new purchase, a heavily modded Marantz c-67. Sounds very nice BUT refuses to play about 5% of my disks which are not copies.
 Any ideas? LAser going bust? A real drag.

[mfsoa]

Shot in the dark, but I have a Rotel that eventually wouldn't read in/play any CDs. So I figured what the heck, and used some pure isopropyl alcohol to clean the lens of the laser. Its been working flawlessly for months now.

Good luck, Shep.

[Hogg]

I had a similar problem with a CDP using a Sony Transport.  I had to replace the laser pick-up. 

                                                                                                       Jim

[vman71]

It could be that your transport and laser mechanism both need to be aligned.  I had a similar problem and getting both aligned fixed everything.

[shep]

yeah well I did take them apart and soldered a few new caps in the power supply while I was there.
it now only refuses 3% of the cd's You figure. I can't

[markC]

Do you Really like the sound of the 97* of the disks that the player will read?
Unless it were my fav. disks that it wouldn't read, I'd sit back and enjoy.

[shep]

unfortunately it's not only that. Sometimes there's serious spitting and "mistracking" Obviously the laser asembly is not a happy puppy. Too bad since it's sounding rather good otherwise. I think I'm going to have to send the (politically incorrect word) back.

[Ferdi]

Just some thoughts reading through the thread:

- You seem to say you could send it back. If it is under warranty I think you certainly should.

- I have once heard of (an older) CDP not playing right but this was tracked down to dirty/stiff lubrication of the drive rails.

Good luck!

[shep]

I found by accident the problem. The ribbon connection from the board to the laser/sled assembly was not fully seated, so there was obviously an intermittant short and the error correction circuit was freaking.
Bravo me! Thanks for the input anyway. "when in doubt, keep it simple"

[shep]

I spoke too soon. Last night it wouldn't play 5 discs in a row, spat and generally misbehaved. Oh dear, back to Brent you S...T. By the way, you might be bemused but I'm posting this link anyway because he does a good job and the sound out of this rather junky machine is great after modding. I just got the Monday car (remember those? Friday wasn't great either) http://www.sercal-electronics.co.uk/