Stuttery, Staticy CD Player

[ness395]

For burning CDs I use these super cheapo CD-Rs (blank on both sides, no company name anywhere) and after playing one or two of them on my CD player, CD-R playback will be incredibly stuttery and have hideously staticy playback. Also, the CD player will take a REALLY long time to read CD-Rs. The sound is usually the worst for the first track and gets progressively better throughout the CD. I noticed that if you restart track one a few times, the sound also gets better for that track.

After it started doing this, I tried playing commercially made CD/SACDs in it, which play perfectly fine. It will read them at the normal speed, and playback sounds fine. However, once I switch back to the CD-Rs, it will still take forever to read them and the playback is still poor.

I have one of those cleaning CDs (the kind with the little brushes on it) and after I use it, CD-Rs will play fine (player reads them just as fast as commercial CDs and the audio is fine), but then the problems will begin to crop up again after I have played one or two CD-Rs.

I know that everyone will say to dump the cheapo CD-Rs (I agree!), but I'm wondering if anyone has any idea what is happening here. The cleaning CD is supposed to remove static buildup (right?), so does that mean the CD-Rs are somehow creating static buildup?

Again, the stuttery, staticy playback does not occur with commercially made CDs or DVDs.

Last but not least, my player is a Sony DVP-NC80V. I got it for $23 with shipping on ebay, so maybe the seller knew something about it that he didn't tell me :shh:

[tot]

Try burning with different speeds. The faster you burn, the less precise the output on the disc and cd players might have hard time reading. Modern burners are not designed anymore to work at 1x speed though, try something like quarter of the max speed.

[ness395]

I've burnt the last few at 4x or 6x and the same thing happens...

[Rolf Erickson]

This may not fix it, but it won't hurt to do it.

Open up the player, by taking the metal case off. You will find near the "tray" for the CD's, a little clear lens like a small contact lens, clean this very gently with a cue-tip or something. Perhaps use a bit of alcohol or fluid cleaner. It may have dust or residue on it that is blurring the laser beam.. You may need to draw out the tray to get at it.. It will be mounted loosely and wiggle a bit, be careful, and do it slow and gently.. It's a shot, may not do anything, but unless you are a klutz, it won't hurt either. I have improved my players reliability on playback considerably with this maintenance procedure. Good luck. Rolf.

[SamS]

Dump the cheapo CD-Rs. Their poor dye layer can cause a host of problems, including the symptoms you described.

[ness395]

This may not fix it, but it won't hurt to do it.

Open up the player, by taking the metal case off. You will find near the "tray" for the CD's, a little clear lens like a small contact lens, clean this very gently with a cue-tip or something. Perhaps use a bit of alcohol or fluid cleaner. It may have dust or residue on it that is blurring the laser beam.. You may need to draw out the tray to get at it.. It will be mounted loosely and wiggle a bit, be careful, and do it slow and gently.. It's a shot, may not do anything, but unless you are a klutz, it won't hurt either. I have improved my players reliability on playback considerably with this maintenance procedure. Good luck. Rolf.

Tried that yesterday, and the CD player worked great for the day (played 3 of the CD-Rs perfectly). However, when I tried it today, the same symptoms I described above are still there. Hmmmmmm

[markshan]

I have found that my car CD player will not play CDRs that are type 8. These discs play fine in every other machine I have and my car player plays type 6&7 with no issues.

If you don't have it already, get EAC (Exact Audio Copy, it is a free download) and use it to check one of the discs you have not yet recorded. If it is type 8 you may be alright with another formulation.

[Jose Jones]

I have had a similar type of problem with cdr-s, mostly with the "audio" type recorded on a stand alone recorder. The discs are usually fine when brand new, but for some reason, as they age, they become harder for certain players to play without the static or skipping. I am sometimes able to copy them on the computer to regular cd-r and those discs play fine much longer and in a greater variety of players.

In my experience, you can tell when a cd-player is starting to decline in the laser or transport department when cd-rs start giving it problems. As you have noted, traditional silver redbook cds are much easier for the player to read so you don't get the static.

[ness395]

If you don't have it already, get EAC (Exact Audio Copy, it is a free download) and use it to check one of the discs you have not yet recorded. If it is type 8 you may be alright with another formulation.

Where is the option / test in EAC?

[markshan]

Tools > Write CDR > CD-R > Display CDR Information (the blank disc must be loaded before you do this).

[ness395]

I have found that my car CD player will not play CDRs that are type 8.

You guessed it! My CDs are type 8...

I had a feeling it was the CD-Rs that were doing this, but why does using the cleaning CD or alcohol on the lens clear up the problem?

[SamS]

You guessed it! My CDs are type 8...

I had a feeling it was the CD-Rs that were doing this, but why does using the cleaning CD or alcohol on the lens clear up the problem?

You may have removed just enough dust/grime from the lens to get it to read a poor CD-R slightly better. The fact still remains, bad media is going to wreck havoc with virtually all CD players.

[markshan]

I don't know that it is "bad media" as much as it is "incompatible" media. I don't use the type 8 for music backup anymore, but they perform quite well for data backup on the computer. The error rate is excellent. So I use one of the 8s and one 6 to double back up any important data.