Got a seemingly very nice Denon DN-C680 CD player for free, I have two options:
1. Thinking it would be nice to have it in the rack so I could fix what's wrong with it for about 50€ and use it for backup/warmup/testing. Seems to me it is the motor supposed to spin the disc that is not able to do the job properly, for a complete drive assembly with laser and the works the price is 50€.
2. Gut it and utilize the carcass for a multi-channel power amp thingy, net gain about 100€.
It seems like a really nice CD player, I see some value in it as a source permanently available that does not need network, bluetooth, USB +++ and there is a certain element of nostalgia as well I guess.
Then again it might not see that much use so....
What do you guys think?
Seems really nice, but then again I do not have any emotional attachment to it other than "could be cool sometimes for just a hands-off album in the background" kind of thing.
Summary:
Denon DN-C680 - Top of the line, once upon a time -To fix or not to fix...
1. Thinking it would be nice to have it in the rack so I could fix what's wrong with it for about 50€ and use it for backup/warmup/testing. Seems to me it is the motor supposed to spin the disc that is not able to do the job properly, for a complete drive assembly with laser and the works the price is 50€.
2. Gut it and utilize the carcass for a multi-channel power amp thingy, net gain about 100€.
It seems like a really nice CD player, I see some value in it as a source permanently available that does not need network, bluetooth, USB +++ and there is a certain element of nostalgia as well I guess.
Then again it might not see that much use so....
What do you guys think?
Seems really nice, but then again I do not have any emotional attachment to it other than "could be cool sometimes for just a hands-off album in the background" kind of thing.
Summary:
Denon DN-C680 - Top of the line, once upon a time -To fix or not to fix...
Last edited:
A drop of light oil applied to the spindle motor bearing might just do the trick if you're lucky!
Alternatively:
If the CD spindle motor is a DC motor, its commutator and metal brushes may be dirty and you can attempt to clean them as follows:
Disconnect both motor wires completely from the circuit board and power the motor directly for a few seconds in each direction from a 9V battery or DC power supply. This will hopefully clean out any contamination from the brushes and commutator.
If this doesn't work then squirt a little contact cleaner into the ventilation holes near the motor connections and repeat the above procedure.
If that still doesn't solve the problem then the spindle motor may be in need of replacement.
The above procedure worked successfully for me when my Technics CD player was failing to read the TOC.
Thank you!
The disc was able to spin up properly, got some new fault codes. Observed that the disc was able to spin up really nice but seemed to fail reading, eventually noticed a tiny little potmeter at the laser assembly and thought it might need a smidge more juice in its old age and that did the trick.
Tried playing a CD, and it worked as in the CD's could be read, but after playing some music there is an increasing amount of errors/stuttering.
If my searches are giving the correct answers everything seems to point at issues with the laser diode. After trying a bit of gentle cleaning of the laser lens and diode assembly it started having issues reading the disc again before it eventually failed completely.
So I am back at the options from post #1.
If I have to order the laser pickup anyway then I might as well get the whole thing just in case so about 50€ total including shipping.
The disc was able to spin up properly, got some new fault codes. Observed that the disc was able to spin up really nice but seemed to fail reading, eventually noticed a tiny little potmeter at the laser assembly and thought it might need a smidge more juice in its old age and that did the trick.
Tried playing a CD, and it worked as in the CD's could be read, but after playing some music there is an increasing amount of errors/stuttering.
If my searches are giving the correct answers everything seems to point at issues with the laser diode. After trying a bit of gentle cleaning of the laser lens and diode assembly it started having issues reading the disc again before it eventually failed completely.
So I am back at the options from post #1.
If I have to order the laser pickup anyway then I might as well get the whole thing just in case so about 50€ total including shipping.
Ordered the parts yesterday..... Will see how it goes.
Also, noticed I made a typo, It is the DN-C680. Corrected my text but thread title is wrong.
In case anyone is interested:
https://rapmag.com/a/00/mar00/denon-dn-c680-review
Also, noticed I made a typo, It is the DN-C680. Corrected my text but thread title is wrong.
In case anyone is interested:
https://rapmag.com/a/00/mar00/denon-dn-c680-review
Fixed.
At any rate, I decided to fix this CD player, the biggest problem was that I was a bit unfamiliar with the different types of laser pickups, and Ebay was littered with mislabelled parts. Ordered one first that turned out to be wrong, got it right on the 2nd try, so now I have a nice CD player with balanced and AES outputs in my rack. 