I'm seeing this on a PS1 that I was able to make better by increasing the laser intensity. I know I've encountered this phenomenon before on some other player in my sky-high stack of thrift store supplied units. Could it be mechanical wear towards the sled end that is closest to the cd holding center hub? Logic would dictate the greatest wear would be on that end due to short attention span of Americans not making it to the outer edge of a cd or disk before popping it out and putting in some other highly stimulating cd? Would these be good candidates for laser assembly replacement?