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CD player reliability.... good and bad.

Since the mid late 80’s I have gone through probably 15 + CD players, some lasted me many many years, some were non working out of box, some lasted a week, some months, and as said some lasted years.
Is the shipping process causing some jolting of the unit, and innards get jolted and the tray or a small piece gets damaged? Or just the way they are made?

We take great care of our CD players, dust cover when not in use, don’t drop them, hit them, shake them.....yet they just stop working or things go bad, skipping, display goes out prematurely, tray rubs on something, or any number of issues...!! ??

BUT,....my cheap pickup truck CD player still works after 13+ years , dust, bumps, filth, exploding pops, lots of dust in my truck from my profession, dash, floor, everywhere, years of dust, caked all over, yet I put in a cd, and the darn thing still works.

But , recently it has started to act up, it plays everything I put in it, but sometimes won’t eject,...


anyway, why is it most CD players have a reliability problem. NOT all of them, but there seems to be a %10-15 of new players that arrive in non-working, or only last a short time.

Any thoughts......
128x128arcticdeth
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jasonbourne52's avatar
jasonbourne52
2,863 posts
 
My Marantz CD67 (1997) still working fine! Albeit with some years spent in storage.Plus the other old players I have (Denon, JVC, NAD, Sony) are also working well. The Pioneer needs lube on the rails.
petg60
1,486 posts
 
If treated with respect they can last many years, they do wear out but maintenance costs less than of other parts in the system.
Only my SCD1 had an issue with a bearing change (the only fault that could never happen) but that was covered by warranty. Now my SCDXA9000ES even being in use for 16+ years passes the track test CD with flying colours.
So not a bad investment.

G

audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
1,986 posts
 
No problems here, all three of my players/transports work just fine...some 5 years or older...they are not my first choice to listen to music however. That would be one of many many turntables and cartridges I own.
cd318
2,636 posts
 
I was quite surprised to find so many broken CD players up for sale on eBay.
At all prices.

It's also disappointing to see so many Arcam players on there with faults as I'd generally taken them to be a reliable make.

As it was pointed out earlier the fact that they are such complicated machines leads to a high probability that some kind of malfunction will occur at some point.

It could be a transport issue or more likely a problem with reading discs. I've found this to to have happened with a couple of budget and midrange Sony machines (plus a PS2). Perhaps that explains why the prestigious ES machines are held in high regard?

It's always been a mystery to me as to why some players seem to be far more forgiving when it comes to reading less than perfect specimens.

A few early machines were said to have a real time error correction display, but this seems to have been universally dropped nowadays.

A real pity as it could have provided useful information in regards to the condition of the machine. An even better option would have been to make it switchable just in case we didn't want to get overly distracted with the mechanics of the machine.
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