Xref: utzoo rec.audio:21688 sci.electronics:12213 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!polaris.cis.ohio-state.edu!rubin From: rubin@polaris.cis.ohio-state.edu (daniel j rubin) Newsgroups: rec.audio,sci.electronics Subject: Re: My CD player is running slow! Message-ID: <81138@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Date: 3 Jun 90 21:53:41 GMT References: <1990Jun2.182334.21396@athena.mit.edu> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Reply-To: daniel j rubin Followup-To: rec.audio Organization: Ohio State University Computer and Information Science Lines: 55 >Is it possible? > >Someone gave me a supposedly broken tape player to look > at, and while I was doing comparitive studies with CD recordings > I noticed that my CD player was running just a little bit slow: > everything was just a bit flat, and a good tape player would > perceptibly overtake the CD in about ten seconds. > > >I haven't opened up my player yet to snoop around, but what are the > chances of me being able to tweak it up to speed? > >They player is a Garrard GCD-46 boombox deal, with the CD tray on top. > >If there is a simple potentiometer in there labeled "Speed Adjust", what > can I use besides my ear to calibrate the machine? Are there any test > signals that a player produces (or is a calibration disc necessary?)? >I do have access to good quality oscilliscopes and the like, if I need them. > I really do not think it is possible for a CD player to run slow and produce the lower and slower tones as does when a analog tape player runs slow. A CD contains digital data which has to be read in at the proper speed for the digital to analog converter to do its job properly. If you take a CD player and slow the disk down with your finger as it is playing it will produce gaps in the music which sounds like noise. My CD player was producing this noise so I opened it up to see if I could fix it and I just happened to rub my finger against the spinning CD and the noise got worse. I started playing around with the pots in the player and happened to find the one to fix the problem and now it works fine. I believe the problem with my CD player was that the disk was spinning just a tad bit too slow and it needed an adjustment and due to the fact it was playing too slow it produced what sounded like noise (missing data in the music, perhaps ?) not lower tones. Try adjusting the speed adjustment you found inside your box and see if it causes this in the CD output (I am assuming the speed adjustment you found inside your protable box is for the CD player and not the tape player). I do not know why your CD player is playing flat and I am just guessing what the exact problem with my player was based on what I found. I hope you can figure it out, it really sucks when you take something in to the repair shop and they charge you fifty bucks to make an adjustment somewhere. By the way if anyone out there has a Sony D-10 and there is something that sounds like excessive noise in the output (escecially with high notes and with songs at the end of the CD) the potentiometer I adjusted to fix the problem is the one located on the side of the actual moving mechanism containing the laser (if you take the back off the player you can't miss it, it is really easy to get to). Try adjusting it just a very slight bit either way and you may be able to fix the problem and save yourself a trip to the repair shop and some bucks. - Dan Rubin