JACkory's Listening Room

It would appear that I have absolutely no luck whatsoever when it comes to finding a decent CD player for the bedroom. I bought the Sony I have now after becoming disgusted by RCA products. I've had two RCA stereo consoles screw up on me. The first went balistic, I can't even describe what happened to it. But even before it crashed there was a hissiing noise coming through when CDs were played that made them sound like old analog tapes. The second simply stop reading the discs. As it turned out, this was not a chronic problem. If you want to listen to a CD on it today, chances are you can if you bang the box hard enough with your fist. That seems to get it going, but there is also a good possibility that it will shut down during the 4th or 5th song.

Basically, both of them were total pieces of shit.


So I said to myself, "Okay, time to try something different."

I'd seen a nice Sony console at Wal-Mart for about 100 bucks. It was a 3 CD changer and had an input for another source (I use it to listen to XM radio). Furthermore, it was capable of playing Mp3 discs. It seemed to be perfect for the bedroom and I'd always had lots of luck with the Sony CD players I've had. I bought it. I took it home and hooked it up. I kicked back, laid my head on a pillow and enjoyed the good sound quality. I fiddled around with the remote control until I could work it with my eyes closed. I read the owner's manual carefully and memorized the most important parts. I plugged in my treasured Bose headphones to see if the unit had what it took to drive those suckers. It seemed to do just fine.
Things went well for a few months. Then, a couple of days ago, I noticed that the CD player in the unit was acting strangely. At first, all I noticed was that the Disc Skip function on the remote didn't seem to be working. If that had been the only glitch I might have brushed it off and counted it as one less convenience.

But then it became apparent that the player's laser was not reading the discs properly. It would show "no disc" on the first then cycle through the other two with the same results. The weird thing was that when you opened up the tray and closed it back up again it would seem to read just fine.

I began to wonder if the problem was caused by the CD player's ability (or inability) to play burned CD-Rs. I placed a couple of "regular" CDs in the trays and, sure enough, it read them perfectly. I thought, "Oh, shit. Most of my discs are burned, what good is this thing going to do me?"

Discouraged, I nevertheless popped in one more burned disc (my two-fer special of Tangerine Dream's "Electronic Meditation" and "Force Majeure"). And I'll be damned if that pesky Sony didn't read that thang and play it perfectly.

Now I am baffled. My mind is boggled. This Sony product has got me scratching my head in confusion. I will not give up, though. I'll keep trying to figure out what's wrong, and how to get it fixed, until the laser poops out on me or until I die, whichever comes first (pray it's the laser...I can always buy another stereo for the bedroom...).