Loud bad noises

>>"If I'd been listening to an LP I'd describe it as "skipping". It's extremely random. The CDs are not scratched"<<

Here is a long shot ... When the lubricant on the guide rails that the laser assy. rides on dries and cakes up, it can cause the laser assy. to bind/stick and lose lock momentarily with the CD's flags and skips, sometimes emitting some strange noises

Pop the top, and clean, and lubricate the laser's guide rails ... if this doesn't help ... the capacitor that charges the laser's power supply may be on it's way out and causing this intermittent problem

Once this cap fails totally ... the laser (no power) will not be able to read the Cd and you will get a "NO DISC" or "ERROR" message in the CD display

HTH Dave

I had a similar problem and someone suggested the lens was dirty and buying a CD that has a little cleaning brush on it. I tried it and cured the problem. So you might want to try this cheap possible fix prior to sending in your unit. I think I originally bought mine at a record store.

Or you could try a very soft brush and a can of compressed air on the assembly. It worked on a skipping Sony player I had.

Thanks all. I will try these "maintenance" suggestions on the CDP. Not to string out this thread but I did switch out the Cambridge for a Sony DVD/CD player I had in the home theater. Twice last night on start up of a disk or track I heard a brief burst of this loud static-like noise. It's like a rapid. ripping noise or machine gun fire...not music - just some kind noise. I shut down volume and stopped the disk. It did not return on re-start and did not occur once a disk was playing. I'm thinking the DAC is losing lock but am not sure why. Thanks again for your input. I'm going to switch digital cables next.
GH

Have you tried your setup without the MF tube buffer? The problem could be in that unit as well...