CAL CL-5 -- Worth Fixing?

[neddyboy]

I grabbed a California Audio Labs CL-5 5 disc player out of an electronics recycling bin. It seemed to work fine, sounded good and I was stoked. Then it started skipping badly. I cleaned it, checked everything I could see, but it still skips.

The skipping seems to be a pretty common fault with CAL decks. Does anyone have any insight into the problem? I've found lots of mentions but no solutions.

Second, is it even worth fixing? The specs I've found list its D/A conversions at 1 bit with 32x oversampling. I'm no expert, but that sounds weak compared to newer units.

As far as the sound goes, I can only compare it to my other CD players: a sweet sounding but old NAD, a mediocre older Luxman, and my fave, a Denon DCM 370.

So, fix or discard? I await your heated opinions.

Neddyboy