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Can a CD-R fry an audio CD player???


mace

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Bad news on the home front. I bought a new spool of CD-R's labeled as "Digital Audio". When I opened the package I was surprised that the CD-R's were different colors. I started with one that was a dark purple. I burned my first disc as an audio CD. It worked just fine in the computer. I loaded into my Denon 620 (1989 vintage) and nothing. Then, I tried to eject it and the CD tray wouldn't come out. I took off the top of the player and got the CD out and put in a commercial CD. I plugged in the player and turned it on and nothing, no CD spinning or anything. When I hit the "open/close" button only the zero's on the time display turn on and off.

So, did this funky purple CD-R just kill my old Denon or was this just coincidence??? I've heard of certain DVD-R media killing DVD burners but I think that was only when writing the DVD... it had something to do with reflection of the light.

Any help would be appreciated.

TIA,

Mace

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I don't think that your newly recorded CD had anything to do with this.

My best guess is that a problem waiting to happen - FINALLY HAPPENED - ( Bummer! :~( )

Open the computer case and ensure that the ribbon cable and the power cable on the CD are both properly seated to your player and your computer's motherboard. The best way to ensure this is to unplug the power cable from the CDP and then reseat the data cable at the CP end and at the motherboard on your computer. Re-connect the power cable to your CD player. Try again.

If the problem persists - I suggest that the problem is probably related to your CD Player.

If you have access to another computer with a CDP then try playing your CDR copy on it. . If the CD plays on that machine I suggest that you try a new CD Player.

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Yes, this is my fear... my trusty Denon has given up the ghost, or at least it's not worth the $$$'s to get the ghost back! I did try the audio CD-R in question in another CD player (an old portable Aiwa) and in my computer and it worked like a charm. DRAT!

Well, what year of the Rega Planet is good???

Mace

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Heh.

I'm sure that any year is good. I've read on this board that some years are better than others. I s'pose I'll have to do a search and read up... I think it was mobile again. You know, if I don't watch it I'll end up with the same system as mobile has.

Mace

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i don't know the exact reason, but i have a lot of older cd playing stuff (old cd-roms and even some of the first cd players). everything made before 1994 was unable to play anything burned from a pc. i don't know if this had something to do with the fact that the music i was recording was converted from mp3 format or if pc cd writers don't burn very well. or maybe the encoding for cd playback changed slightly after 1994? i'd really like to know cause it's a fricken annoying thing that i've just been putting up with.

as far as your denon...don't go throwing it away just yet. does it still open/close when you press the button? or is it only changing the display? u could try assisting the drawer while it's trying to open and close. to me it sounds like your denon is confused and ya gotta mechanically work it so that it gets back into the groove of things.

i had a tape player once that did a similar thing...i ripped the door off to get the tape out (cause i had to have the tape in 5 minutes and had another tape player handy)...well it took a lot of coaxing to get that tape player back in workin condition. for some reason, it refused to believe there was no tape in it and was always tryin to rewind it 8.gif all that to say, maybe it still thinks the cdr is in there. i'd try to press all sorts of levers and knobs till it starts working again (that's if you're not too worried about breaking it)

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DrWHO. I have a shure ultra d-6000 cd player, bought it new around 1987 give or take a year. But anyway it plays those cdrs with no problem.

Mace, try unpluging the player and pluging it back in, if that doesnt work, unplug the unit and wait a few hours and try it again, or wait a day or two.I had a few electical products in my life that for some stupid reason this trick worked, why, dont ask me.

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Thanks for all the tips!

First, the Denon is still kaputt. I did unplug the unit and take off the cover (first thing I did) and poke around, wiggle wires, etc. I can slide open the tray by pushing it close it by pushing it manually. The "open/close" button does nothing except toggle the display from "00:00" to nothing. When I push "play" (both with CD inserted and no CD inserted) the play light lights up for a bit and then goes out. (I can insert CD's manually with the cover of the unit off). If I remember correctly, when the unit was functioning properly, pushing "play" with no CD inserted resulted in nothing, since it knew there wasn't a disc in it.

There are not hums, whirs or clicks when I power up the Denon like it used to do. It seems like it can't "boot", like it's waiting on a signal from something but isn't getting it.. maybe the laser is burnt out or some resistor/capacitor is fried.

At any rate, with the amount of listening I did this weekend with my "lovely" Sampo DVD player I need some resolution to this quickly. Talk about a grating source. We got the Sampo for code free/PAL/NTSC playback and it does this well... audio CD's it does not do well. It does play mp3 disks which is kind of cool.

As far as CD-ROMs... normally I buy the Sony or Verbatim spools. They played fine in my Denon and old portable Aiwa (1994 vintage) but not in my car's Clarion 6-disc car changer (1998). Burning at lower speeds (I have an old Yamaha 4X max burner) like 1X or 2X seemed to help the CD's partially work (they would play but with lots of skipping) in the car but it wasn't bullet proof. I tried these new purple "Audio" CD-R's and at 2X they seem playable in my car... but of course the first try in my Denon had less than desirable results. I don't know why but some audio players, even newer ones (then again, maybe some wouldn't consider 1998 in the class of "newer ones"), are picky with CD-R media.

I still have a hard time believing that these purple CD-R's killed my Denon but the timing of my Denon's death sure seems odd. Looks like I'll have to start tinkering and unscrewing stuff... or maybe my local audio store will do me a favor (yeah, right) since I have thrown a fair amount of $$$'s their way (KLF's, B&K for me and Denon system for my parents). I simply can't throw the Denon as I'm way too sentimental, oh the memories!

Thanks again,

Mace

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I have the same problem with CDR media and my Panasonic car unit. It won't play the darker blue TDK discs, but will play lighter blue (Memorex, etc..) just fine. My old Alpine wouldn't play the lighter blue so most of my CDs are TDK, and when I got my new Panasonic it wouldn't play them. Talk about frustrating.

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Some CD players are more picky than others about playing CDR media.

In my not that all encompassing experience it helps to burn using "Disk at Once" instead of "Track at Once" also make sure to close out the session and not to write a multi-session disk, these settings depend on your burner and software.

Sometimes even if you burn a CDR as an audio cd it is not quite up to the red book CD-DA standard.

As for the age of CD players that will play burned CD's it varies widely, the JVC CD player that was my families first cd player has been able to play any brand of CDR that I've tried: pale blue green Memorex, bright blue expensive TDK, kinda blue FUJI and some silver looking thing my friend had. The JVC CD player is still my families main CD player, it was bought in 1990 or 91 and I would estimate it has been used about 2 to 4 hours a day since the early nineties and is still going strong. Not once have we had to take it in for service, not bad for over 10,000 hours. I wish my parents Sony reciever was that reliable15.gif

Peace, Josh

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