My stereo no longer plays CDs. When I load a CD it makes a few clicking noises and eventually gives "No Disc" message.
I believe (from probing around some years ago when I had a fault that required the CD unit to be replace) that the noise is the lens trying to focus and is hitting the CD.
I guess it implies a dead laser and therefore a dead unit - but someone may know better................................It is a pain to strip.
The clicking will not be the lens hitting the CD - if it did there would be marks on the disc. It is more likely the clutch as the lens assembly gets to the end of its travel.
Have you tried cleaning the laser lens? Disassembly is really not too difficult to do the cleaning with a cotton bud soaked in plain alcohol or meths. Otherwise buy yourself a lens cleaning disc - it's still cheaper than a new machine - but usually not much!
The other question is how old is the machine? Lasers do fail, especially on the earlier models, but the more modern lasers of the last few years in any half decent machine should outlast the machanics!
Perhaps this is an indicator that a new machine is needed. I replaced my Philips, that must have been 10 years or more old only a few weeks ago, with a Marantz. Considering that the original cost me less that £100 and the new one cost me £150 I would have expected to hear a noticable improvement, but there isn't. Yes I am beginning to notice some subtleties, especially in the depth and solidity of the bass, but other than that, little. In other words unless you are an audiophile with up-market equipment, don't bother to buy anything expensive. Something that meets your functional needs at
Thanks - it is a Sony Compact "Hi-Density Component System" MHC-1500 of around 10 years old.
I will take a look - and have the dust-bin handy.
I've got an old MHC-5500 in the mithcen for the staff to blast their CDs on when working. The CD player (dark grey, rubbery finish?) has packed up several times over the past 3 years. Each time I open the unit up, blow out the dust, wipe the lens with a cotton wool bud damped with vodka. That seems to fix it for about 6 months. A 1" drop test has also fixed it once or twice when I got really fed up with it.
HTH
Tony
Fixed it. Took the outer covers off and wound the pick up head into view and cleaned it with the corner of a cloth. It seems to work well again.
Thanks for encouraging me to try.
Does it not play any CD's? Perhaps the tracking has jammed and the laser cannot move across the disc.
cheers, Pete.
When I used to fix pro equipment at a radio station (Denon cart-loading CDs players costing upwards of £1200 for example) a failed or failing laser could cause an interesting effect - the disc would spin up, focus would fail ("click") and abruptly stop and "bounce" into reverse.
Of course it didn't have any more success reading the disc backwards than it did forwards :-)
KSS210A and KSS240A were the lasers in question. Cheap enough from CPC when they have offers on.
Of course, this was a radio station where the poor players were probably in "pause" or "play" for 23 hours out of 24 (only two or three in a studio which means that for back-to-back music the only time the player would get into "stop" mode was when the jock took the disc out ready to insert the next). Our lasers used to fail before they really became dirty; probably somewhere between 6 and 12 months.
But in a domestic situation, of course, dust and grime is the usual culprit and as has already been suggested, a bit of isopropyl on a cotton bud or the dry corner of a tissue can work wonders.
Hwyl!
M.
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