Sony X5000 troubleshooting

The evidence appears to point to a sluggish or jerky sled response when cold. The mechanical maximum lateral movement within the head is quite small...around 1mm at a guess...so the period between each jog of the sled motor might fit the rythm of your glitches.

This could be gear lash, dragging motor, or some kind of bearing lock, such that clearances become more favourable when warm. All would be peculiar to the construction of this type of carriage. The motor driver might also be suspect.

At a guess, the change of resistor allows the laser mech to tolerate misalignment better, but does not address the real problem. I still wonder if it was swapped by Sony at the last minute to rectify some other emergent fault.

Is there a way of adjusting the "balance" between sled and lateral motor? If you can alter the relationship between the two, the glitch rythm should change if this theory is true.

i don't completely agree...the mechanism of a cd player doesn't reach a temperature,when working, such as to produce or modify any clearance in the mechanism itself and/or in any bearings (i think this can only happen with wear)...it is not like any other mechanism like a clutch, an engine or something else.
 
Yes you are correct. During ordinary playing there is no skipping with external clock. It was my intension to bring this odd design to your attention. If this synchronisation is slipping for whatever reason you will experience this as small clicking in the sound reproduced. This is done to get around the problem of frequencies not easily divided to match the purpose. Divide 45,1584 Mhz by three and you end up with 15,0528 Mhz
 
@ il capo
@ Plasticisgood

I completely disagree. A new laser never helped - I mentioned my Toshiba XR-Z70. It now runs for 28 years with the same laser.

And as il capo wrote, the X5000 needs simply to warm up without playing a disc to start tracking correctly.
So mechanical parts (Like a motor or a coil) can be still cold, but a transistor driving the coils/motor might have heated enough to work correctly.
So I guess something in the circuitry is prone to cold, not the mechanics.

15 degrees change in temperature - this is nothing for plastic or steel rods or grease.

Again, it also needs a poor RF-signal from a CD to make the problems evident.
They do not seem to occur when a CD is of good manufacturing quality.

Normally I would not care, because the player seems to play fine after half an hour BUT we can not be sure, that error interpolation simply masks tracking errors after the player has heated up!!!!
Maybe we should study schematics from other Sony players that use the fixed pickup for comparison. Players are:

SONY CDP-X3000 CXD2562Q + 2 x CXA8042AS Fixed Pick-Up KSS-213B
SONY CDP-XA30ES CXD2562Q + 2 x CXA8042AS Fixed Pick-Up KSS-213B
SONY CDP-XB930 CXD8735N - CXA8055M - CXA2568 Fixed Pick-Up KSS-213BA
SONY CDP-XA5ES CXD2562Q + 2 x CXA8042S Fixed Pick-Up KSS-273A
SONY CDP-XA7ES CXD2562Q + 2 x CXA8042AS Fixed Pick-Up KSS-273A
SONY CDP-XA50ES CXD2562Q + 2 x CXA8042AS Fixed Pick-Up KSS-273A / B
SONY CDP-XA55ES CXD8594Q + CXA8042S - CXD8762Q Fixed Pick-Up KSS-273B
SONY CDP-XA555ES CXD8762Q - CXD9521Q - CXA8042AS Fixed Pick-Up KSS-273B
SONY CDP-X5000 CXD2562Q + 2 x CXA8042AS Fixed Pick-Up KSS-274A
SONY CDP-XE700 CXD8567AM Fixed Pick-Up – KSS-213B
SONY CDP-XE800 CXD8505BQ Fixed Pick-Up – KSS-213B
SONY CDP-XE900 CXD8505 + CXA8055 Fixed Pick-Up – KSS-213B

Players like the XA5ES could be very close in circuitry design...


eehhmmm i forgot....i also own an CDP-XB930 (same transport, and pickup of CDP-X3000) that has skipping problems just like my X5000...the only difference is that the XB930 makes A LOT of these errors for each tracks of the playing cd and usually takes a long time to disappear (+30mins).
 
CD´s have a track pitch of 1.6 µm. So I guess 16 turns roughly means 25µm.

I own a Test CD with artificial defects.
"CD-Check" by "Digital Recordings" Number DR2002
Black arrows ranging from 0,375mm from the center of the CD to 1.5mm on the outside. It is four of them, laid out like a cross.
The X5000 will play up to 4x 1,125mm defects fine. I assume the manufacturing quality of the CD is very good, because despite the arrows it shows a very clean, sharp eyepattern. CD´s with bad eyepattern (but still within the range of being played back normally) show the "cold=skip" effect.

I also use the X5000 as transport only - the classical way - with a Buffalo II hooked to it.
Or better said , a Nakamichi OMS-5II modified with a BuffaloII. Part of the mod was to provide the Nak with SPDIF inputs.

But I have the skipping also while listening with the X5000´s internal DAC.

But now what could be the solution? Feeding the X5000´s CXD2515AQ decoder directly with a 16.9344mHz clock?
But X601 does provide this frequency? (Maybe Sony was sloppy stating 16mHz instead of 16.9344.)

PLL Free Run Frequency check demands 4.3218 mhz. Same like in other Sony players, like the XB930 or a CDP-502 from 1985

Can I monitor reading errors? Many older decoders had an output pin for counting them, but the CXD2515 does not have one, correct?
 
Last edited:
Sorry, please ignore my reply #56 in this thread completely.
Skipping is not dependent on the discs manufacturing quality. The X5000 in in a room of 13 degrees celsius right now.
Switching on the X5000 after 2 days of rest, both discs mentioned in #56 play equally bad.
Tested this with external DAC via AES/EBU and with internal DAC. Skipping starts to disappear after 25 minutes...
All the best,
Salar
 
Datsheet of the CDP-X5000 IC´s for driving the spindle and sled motor - BA6297AFP.
Even though the datasheet shows that one IC can drive sled and spindle motor, Sony used two of them.
Also Sony´s implementation is different from what the manufacturer shows in the application example.
Maybe this is worth to check for design errors?
 

Attachments

  • BA6297AFP_Sony_CDP-X5000_IC.pdf
    109 KB · Views: 55
Last edited:
If the problem is that a chip or associated components only work when warm, perhaps you could try freezer spray on them when the machine is working? That should then provoke the problem, yes?

25 min is a very long time for a chip to warm up.

I almost wish my XB930 were similarly afflicted, so I could be of more help, but it works perfectly whatever the temperature, down to around 1 or 2 degrees at least. It does suffer from the occasional rotation-speed clacking that all Sonys seem to share...from a fluttering focus mech I believe.
 
Dear Gajanan, show me what you mean with "arc", I´d loved to be teached :)

What I found out this morning:
I did warm up the player with a hairdryer , not much, especially (but not only) the area close to the KSS-274 laser.
No jumping, (as expected, like with earlier tests )
So maybe the laser is prone to cold but i´ll have to repeat this tomorrow (Don´t heat my house during the night)

So tomorrow I will only warm up the laser and try to keep other parts cold.
A freezer spray might not help, because it could produce residues in the laser.
Don´t think it is a weak diode, because this problem exists from the beginning.
Could be a sticky pole.
As far as I understand BA6297AFP drives also the KSS coils and is connected directly to them.
So probably no bad engineering there.
All the best,
Salar
 
Last edited:
Well the player has started to fail on power up again. I am going to put back the 330 ohm (JW 600) as this is obviously not causing this problem. The next step is to try to increase the power on reset timing. This is to give the powersupply more time to reach the desired output before the digital circuits are enabled. Increase C697 to around 6-7uF pin 4 IC691.
Power on reset. I will certainly advice when I know the outcome of this modification.
 
Is it? Good that u r also teaching while asking for help.

Gajanan Phadte

Like this...four pole pieces, inner pair with vertical coils for focus, outer pair with four horizontal coils for fine tracking. Black bits, coils and laser move in relation to silver and gold-coloured bits. Between the two, the white lump of plastic is a parallelogram pivot/spring for vertical movement, and a lightly sprung pair of pivots for the lateral. It's not ovbious how the tracking movement is held to a parallelogram, but I guess there must be a guide pin somewhere.

Strictly speaking, although the driving force is linear, movemement is in arcs. Note the Toshiba in my Avatar is lighter, cheaper, and much more elegant, with a much better two-axis plastic spring.

Pic is of KSS190A, but I think other Sonys are similar.
 

Attachments

  • SonyHeadComp.jpg
    SonyHeadComp.jpg
    299.8 KB · Views: 112
Last edited:
Good old times - KSS-123A from 1987. No plastic.
One of my best trackers is a Toshiba XR-Z70.
Made my test, heating only the laser for 15 seconds. Of course the heat gets into the CDP-X5000´s cabinet, but the CD-compartment (made of metal) was cold to the touch again after another 15 seconds.
No skipping.
So maybe the laser is prone to cold...
 

Attachments

  • KSS-123A_Photograph_from_1987.jpg
    KSS-123A_Photograph_from_1987.jpg
    495.6 KB · Views: 109
Administrator
Joined 2007
Paid Member
I've had one case (KSS210) where the centre bearing was "sticky". If that is a problem then its difficult to correct because the lens suspension is a synthetic neoprene type contraption and is easily damaged if you try and detach it from under the lens in order to lift it clear. I suppose you could try "washing" it through with single drops of ISO on the centre shaft.

Unless that is the problem it would be easy to make things worse.