Distorted sound CD player

[Danhifi]

This evening I put a CD into my Rotel CD14 player and pressed play. The sound was distorted and sorta crackling. I ejected the CD, blew air on the CD and onto the CD tray and then it played fine. Any thoughts? Assuming it just dust.

 

[Gray3]

.....Assuming it just dust.

It's likely your assumption is correct - blowing the tray took some dust off the lens.
Next move is to thoroughly clean it.

 

[BlueWizard]

That t is making Audible Noise is odd. Generally the CD can either read or it can't read. It might take multiple passes to get a section of the CD right, if it simply can't read, it shuts down. Worst case, you might get a short pause in the music stream. Very very very odd that it is stilll operating, yet random noise is being injected into the music. With in a context, that's not how CDs work.

I would most certainly check your cables and cable connections. Try wiggling the interconnect wires and see if you get any static or crackling sound. If is possible that you have a bad cable, or perhaps just a bad connection. Remove, inspect, and re-insert the cables, which I'm going to assume are RCA.

I could be that when you blew it out, you moved the CD Player and that moved the Cables to a position where they were good again.

Just one of many possibilities.

Steve/bluewizard

 

[Danhifi]

I am unable to reproduce the "disruption". I unplugged the coax cable and plugged it back in. I did not move the CD player in the first situation, so who knows? All is well that ends well. Fingers crossed.

 

[Deleted member 824153]

Yup. Put it down to gremlins. Rotel make rock-solid cd players with excellent reliability in my experience.

 

[dannnielll]

That t is making Audible Noise is odd. Generally the CD can either read or it can't read. It might take multiple passes to get a section of the CD right, if it simply can't read, it shuts down. Worst case, you might get a short pause in the music stream. Very very very odd that it is stilll operating, yet random noise is being injected into the music. With in a context, that's not how CDs work.

I would most certainly check your cables and cable connections. Try wiggling the interconnect wires and see if you get any static or crackling sound. If is possible that you have a bad cable, or perhaps just a bad connection. Remove, inspect, and re-insert the cables, which I'm going to assume are RCA.

I could be that when you blew it out, you moved the CD Player and that moved the Cables to a position where they were good again.

Just one of many possibilities.

Steve/bluewizard

The assumption that digital either is perfect or zero, is not quite true, there is always a grey zone, where the error detection is struggling ,but not just given up. On TVs it is accompanied by a screeching noise and heavily blocked images ..On CDs it can be stuttering and screeching

 

[BlueWizard]

I am unable to reproduce the "disruption". I unplugged the coax cable and plugged it back in. I did not move the CD player in the first situation, so who knows? All is well that ends well. Fingers crossed.

You neglected to say that you were using the Digital Out of the CD Player.

Here is an idea, try using the Analog Out, and see if the problem is still there. The Rotel CD14 uses a Wolfson 24b/`192k DAC which should be pretty good.

Also, are you using a random RCA Cable for the Coaxial, or are you using a true 75ohm Digital Coaxial Cable? Just curious?

Though if as you are implying, the problem is now solved, then ...cool... problem solved for now.

Steve/bluewizard

 

[noiseboy72]

Probably just the act of restarting the CD player was enough to sort out whatever the issue was. It could be that the disc was not quite spinning up to speed or the converter had locked to the wrong rate or something, so it was creating very high distortion.

Not unknown. I use to have a Micromega Minium CD player that would get its knickers in a twist and would open the tray with the disc still spinning - and still playing for a second or so!!

 

[Deleted member 824153]

Sometimes these things have minds of their own. One day, my old Rotel CD player decided it wasn’t going to open its disc drawer. I thought it was the end until next day, for no discernible reason, it worked perfectly and never happened again. There must have been a mechanical reason but I couldn’t fathom it.

 

[MaryWhitehouse]

When my Yamaha turned up the tray was totally loose. Didn’t open or close on the button. Opened it up and found 3 cd’s knocking around in the case! In transit one had managed to disconnect the drive mechanism. 10 minutes later all sorted and working perfectly.