Noisy cdplayer ?

[mirland]

Hi !

I've recently bought a used Sony XA3ES which I plan to hot-rod later. But until then I am using it as is in my setup (Sugden A21a/Royd Saphire). Last night I wanted to hear a certain cd with danish singer Aud Wilken (and yes the cd is in perfect condition). To my horror it sounded as a vinyl record with a great piece of fluff in the needle. The highs were horribly distorted. Oh well, I tried out another amplifier, no change. Another set of cables, no change. Other speakers, no change. This morning I tried just for the h... of it to connect my dvd player (an older Pioneer) and it played the cd as it should. No distortion whatsoever.

I've cleaned the Sony everywhere that's possible to clean. I've tried both the fixed and variable output and also the headphone output. No change ! It seems the Sony cannot play this exact cd - or so I thought. It has the same problem with the "Jupiter Day" debut album. Both albums has a lot of highs (strings, synths and distorted guitars) but this is bad...

Any ideas ?

Thanks in advance !

/Mirland