CARY SACD Pro CD skipping Issues

Way to go Jake ... I'm glad you finally took my advice and cleaned up the guide rails from my earlier post  ... this skipping is a very common problem when the factory lubricant dries up on the laser guide rails ... causing the laser sled to stall and skip  

I've recommended this repair to over a dozen  members on various forums and every one who has tried it was ecstatic with the results and not having to send their expensive  player's out for unnecessary costly  repairs  

As far as cleaning the laser lens itself ... stay away from any solvent that is alcohol based as the alcohol in the solvent will dissolve the glue that holds the laser lens in place and then you "WILL" have to replace the laser assembly  

You can clean the laser lens with a soft brush used to clean camera lens or check with a eye glass or camera center and see if they have a non alcohol based cleaning solvent  

Once again congrats on taking things into your own hands and not jumping out of the basement window 

Redemption is a tremendous motivator

. 

Additional info:

The repairs that were made to my Cary were;

Under warranty they just greased the sled.

Then out of warranty suddenly all of these issues occurred.

*New laser (twice)!

*New sled

*New circuit board

*Gearing

No more Cary for me!

I had a Cary 306 SACD and it had all the problems mentioned above. I sent it to Cary numerous times. Each time the repair bill was between $500-$1000. Always something. Finally, after the last time it was fixed, I traded it in.

Cary was not so helpful to me. So, personally I won’t buy any more Cary products.

Your Cary's skipping problem is most likely being caused by the laser sled ... which is trying to read the spinning disc ...  running into a spot of dried up factory lubricant on the laser rails that the laser assembly is traveling on  

The factory lubricant will dry up and harden  in spots on the laser guide rails  ... when the laser sled traveling down the rails hits one of these spots it stalls momentarily due to the resistance of the dried up lubricant stalling or slowing the laser's travel... at this point the laser looses lock with the data on the spinning disc and starts to skip as it can't read the data stream off the disc correctly  

Eventually the laser sled will drive through the dried up lubricant spot and regain lock with the disc's flags and continue to play until it hits another spot of dried up lubricant 

If you can access the rails just clean them of the dried up lubricant and re-lube and the laser should stop stalling and losing lock with the disc  

Very common problem with a fairly easy fix