Static sound from CD?

Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.
I have a strange problem that just started this morning. My CD player and the receiver it has been paired with for almost a dozen years started misbehaving. Not sure where to point the finger. The problem is that when a CD is playing, the sound has lots of static in it, very similar to the sound a dirty needle makes on a phonograph. When I change the source to FM stereo, the sound quality is fine. Playing a vinyl album is also problem free.

The receiver is a 36-year old Pioneer SX-750. The CD player is a Technics SL-PD887. I tried different speaker settings - 'A' and 'A+B' without any change in sound quality. I swapped out the CDs, no better. The player uses the 'AUX' setting on the receiver.

Any thoughts on how to start diagnosing the source of the problem? I don't have another CD player to swap out, but I could put the CD player on another system. A PIA to move it, but if that is the only sure-fire way to tell if it is one or the other, then I will just bite the bullet and do it.
 
Did you get any new electronic devices for the holidays?

Ironically, I was given a new receiver by my wife. I hated to part with my fully-functional Pioneer receiver, so I had her ship it back. Now this!

As far as I can tell, the problem must be in the CD player, as the noise is not present with either the radio, or the phono. Unless and somehow, the receiver AUX input could be an issue?
 
Ironically, I was given a new receiver by my wife. I hated to part with my fully-functional Pioneer receiver, so I had her ship it back. Now this!

As far as I can tell, the problem must be in the CD player, as the noise is not present with either the radio, or the phono. Unless and somehow, the receiver AUX input could be an issue?

Possible but not likely. The phono stage has a separate preamp (2 if equipped for moving coil) to raise the signal to line level like the tuner sections already are. The AUX input rarely has any added active stages independent of the other line level signals including tape monitor inputs. IOW if the tuners are clean it is VERY likely the aux input and tape monitor is OK too. Easy enough to verify if you use an analog output of the computer into the AUX input and give it a listen.

Happy New Year

 
Administrator
Joined 2007
Paid Member
Is the problem on both channels ?

If so then this problem could be a marginal RF signal from the laser pickup where the error correction is working overtime.

Have you tried leaning the lens ?

Other remote possibilities are faulty processing somewhere in the DAC chain (such as faulty RAM) but thats more a problem on really old players that use ancient separate DRAM memory.
 
Status
This old topic is closed. If you want to reopen this topic, contact a moderator using the "Report Post" button.