Conrad Johnson DV2b skips

[Tino_diy]

Dear digital experts,
this is the first post of my life, so sorry for my inexperience...

I have an old (1995) CJ DV-2b integrated cd player, which skips bits. I discovered that it use the Philips CD720 (Maranz CD46) brown board with a CDM 12.1, replaced with a VAM1202 + L1210/11 combo. The DAC is SAA7345GP + TDA 1545A.
Since two years the player started to skip bits.
I have already replaced the VAM 1202 (made in China) with a Philips VAM1201 (made in Japan) but apparently the problem reappeared after a few days. You can see details of the work here:

http://digilander.libero.it/agostino...b_vam1202.html

I also put oil for the ax.
I don't know if the problem is in the VAM1202, or in the tray loader (which level is not perfect for both the clamp bridge and the VAM mechanic), or in the board chips/parts.
Any help to fix this problem is welcome.

Last, I would like to know from experts if there are suggested mods for the digital part (the output stage is already good, I guess) or if it is possible to replace the whole Philips mechanic and brown board with something better (but using the power supplies and output stage already present).

Thank you in advance!

[Tino_diy]

If possible I add also a picture of the Philips board, where you can see (where the flat cable is soldered) where they took the -digital I think- output signal. Hope that this could help in suggesting mods/replacements...

[Tino_diy]

Hi,
I don't know if that this could help to solve my mistracking problem, but, for the sake of completeness, I add a picture of the Philips board from bottom, where you can see that the TDA1545A has been desoldered. You can see just the SAA7345GP and the TDA1301T servo processor (maybe it a source of reading error?).

Outside of the Philips board, in the CJ board, there is the clock circuit and the TDA1305T DAC, which is still a bitstream, but much better than the SAA7345GP. I think that CJ bypassed the 7345, perhaps using I2s? I think that the DAC/output stage of this cd player is really good, I would like only to upgrade the drive mechanic and servo circuits...
Thanks for looking,
Tino

[Tino_diy]

Hi digital world,

I have finally solved this problem buying a used Philips CD720 and using its CD12.1 mechanic to replace both the original tray loader and my new VAM1202 mechanic. After one month of tests, it still works perfectly.
I tried the new VAM1202 on the old Philips CD720 and it skips a lot of data. I still don't know if all the VAM1202 which I bought on eBay were faulty or if the Philipd CD720 board (CJ DV-2b) are not fully compatible with the VAM1202 mechanic...
I have posted more details in my audio web site:

http://digilander.libero.it/agostino...b_vam1202.html

Ciao!