Does anyone know about transports?...

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I have a Simaudio Moon Stellar that I just bought about 4 months ago. Just in the past few weeks, it's been acting up, stopping randomly on a CD, anywhere anytime, and once even freezing up the entire unit until I killed power to it for a half hour.

It has a Philips ASD1 transport with 2-laser pickup, which seems impossible to get a hold of these days. And I've tried contacting Simaudio via email over the past 3 weeks with no replies. Right now, I'm not very pleased with them or their lack of customer service. Plus, IF I go through them, they'll probably charge more than what the thing is worth.

I was thinking that with the guidance of you guys here, I could probably get it back up and running for a few more years at a fraction of the cost.

Any thoughts?

Many thanks in advance!

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Have you tried the basics such as a proper lens clean and making sure the laser mech is free to move ?

Not familiar with the player or the mech but a quick search indicates its a DVD transport.

It is in fact a DVD player, but I don't use it for that, just CD playback, and just as a transport as far as that goes. As you see in the pic above, I use a Schiit Bifrost for the analog end.

I'll open it up this weekend, but from what I have read about those Philips transports, they had issues from day one which was still 2 years before Simaudio decided to use them in their design.


You may find what you require here.
Laser Phillips CD: TV, Video & Home Audio | eBay

Hope that helps

Sorry, but whatever that was, it's no longer available.



Also, I got an email back from Simaudio and they no longer have parts for the Stellar. The replacement transports were used up years and years ago. Imagine that.

So as it sits right now, I have a hunk of scrap metal weighing in at 42 lbs that's worth less than nothing. Unless you guys can come up with an optional, compatible transport that can be used, I'm screwed with this deck and am out 600 bucks. :headbash:
 
Service manual here

The laser mech appears to be VAM6001/01 but you can confirm that when you look inside. As Mooly suggests, clean the lens and ensure sliding things slide and spinning things spin as they should. If you feel the urge to lubricate the sled, only use 100% synthetic, and be very sparing.

Replacements are probably available. If you can discover what other players used the same mech, you may be able to pick one up cheap and strip it for spares.

I searched for DVD transport. There are some quite interesting steam train films...
 
Service manual here

The laser mech appears to be VAM6001/01 but you can confirm that when you look inside. As Mooly suggests, clean the lens and ensure sliding things slide and spinning things spin as they should. If you feel the urge to lubricate the sled, only use 100% synthetic, and be very sparing.

Replacements are probably available. If you can discover what other players used the same mech, you may be able to pick one up cheap and strip it for spares.

I searched for DVD transport. There are some quite interesting steam train films...

Thanks for the service manual link.

When I open it up this weekend, I'll take pics and everything else I can do, but I'm not holding my breath. As I said, this was a problem transport from conception straight from Philips. It would most likely be a waste of time, money and energy trying to find another deck with the same transport in it.
 
Well I opened it up today. I ended up unplugging a bunch of connectors and two ribbon cables, unscrewed four nuts and pulled the entire face plate off. After close inspection of the suspected piece, I pulled up the model number that PlasticIsGood mentioned above on eBay. Turns out, it is the same unit, and only 25 bucks!

Guess what I just ordered?! :D

It's a small price to pay if it does the job and keeps this deck running for a few more years. Hopefully it's not the controller board underneath it that's shot. I moved the lens back and forth and everything looks/feels fine to me, but that doesn't mean it is.

Anyway, some pics of the goings-ons today...

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Too bad, I was hoping you hadn't. I had to ask though. The first time fail of every transport I've owned was solved by cleaning the lens. Good luck with the new part!

That is definitely not my experience hehe. Quite the opposite, cleaning never worked for me :(


I have replaced several Denon and Sony Lasers and I reckon that this Phillips is no different.

The Sony lasers are a pain in the butt and Denon replacement has been good with straight swapping. I believe this Phillips will be a straight swap too.

FYI I had to send my Sony XA9000ES to Sony for repair because I couldn't fix it with a straight swap.... what they did is replace one messily 1/4w resistor and swapped my good laser with another lol

So yeah if the laser replacement doesn't help than you need to talk to one of their techs or spend tons of time figuring their circuits out.
 
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