[DrOct]

So I've had my Onkyo DV-CP802 Universal player for a while now and for the most part I like it a lot. I've recently run into some problems with some SACD's though. Up until this point I haven't had any problems with any discs, CD's, CD-R's, DVD's DVD+/-R's, DVD-A's, SACD's (both dual and single layer) etc. However I recently got the Thelonius Monk "Straight No Chaser" SACD and my player doesn't seem to like it much. It plays fine sometimes but most of the time I have to force the player to load it a few times before it'll actually play.

Here's what happens when it's giving me trouble:

I put the disc in and select the disc. It displays "loading" and makes some sounds. Then (usually) the SACD light comes on, then it turns off, it keeps trying to load, and then it seems to give up and move on to the next disc. I then have to open it up again and make it try to load again. Usually it'll play it after 2 or 3 tries, but sometimes it takes more than that. I've also had the same problem with the Coltrane "A Love Supreme" SACD.


When they do play they sound pretty good, (The Monk SACD sounds especially AMAZING). It's just very strange, I haven't had this problem with any other discs.

Is it possible it's because they're 2-channel CD's? I think I have some other 2-channels that worked just fine, but I may have to test this out some more when I get home...


It should be noted that I also bought this CD once before, and had the same problem (only worse) and returned it deciding there must be something wrong with the disc. They didn't have any other copies at the store so I just got some other Redbook CD.

I will mention that when I had this disc originally I tried putting the disc in my older Sony SACD player, which isn't currently hooked up to anything, and it seemed to play it without trouble (SACD light came on, it started showing the track and playtime etc). haven't tried it yet with the newest copy of Monk or with the Coletrane CD.

Anyone else ever have trouble like this with specific discs?

 

[sivadselim]

Whatever it is, the problem is not specific to "jazz" SACDs.


My Denon2200 gives me the same sort of trouble, sometimes. I have to reload the SACDs a few times before it reads it properly. Strangely, it even does it sometimes with plain redbook CDs, so it's not even specific to SACDs

 

[Ovation]

Some discs are manufactured slightly out of spec for thickness (I have a few) and they can sometimes cause a bit of trouble for the loading mechanism. I don't know if it can damage the player (I don't play the few I have often enough to worry, IMO) and some players are more sensitive to them than others. Also, sometimes it's not the thickness but the centre hole--it could be oddly shaped.

 

[DrOct]

Interesting. I doubt it's the thickness, as my player is a tray-loading mechanism, and it's never even blinked when I put DualDiscs in it (like the Talking Heads Brick discs, which where actually the main reason I bought the player over a similar Yamaha, which I was told had trouble with those discs). The hole might make sense though, if it caused the discs to be slightly too high or low or to wobble a bit while playing that would explain why the player has trouble "locking on" to the disc, but does alright once it does get it. I had wondered if perhaps it was a manufacturing issue.


Also I am aware that it's not the fact that they'e "jazz" SACD's but I was wondering if perhaps there was a known problem with certain labels or something that often published these CD's (both of which are in fact Jazz CD's). Well, it's not too frustrating, just means a little bit of extra work to play some of these. I may also be setting up my older player in another room as part of a two channel set up, and it seems to have less trouble with these discs so that may just be where I listen to these most often anyway.


Any other info anyone else has would of course be appreciated. What discs have given you trouble in the past? Might be useful to people if we compile a list of discs to be careful with...

 

[apodaca]

I have one troublemaker SACD and its the Police greatest hits in SACD surround. The disk plays fine in CD and in Stereo SACD but on Multichannel it craps out instantly on one player, craps out the last four songs in another player, and in a crappy old player it plays all the way through about 60% of the time.


I did not want to risk this happening again so I just got the DTS version. I still purchase SACDs now and then as I find them - chesky and concord releases are excellent.

 

[WestCoastD]

I think this erratic behavior is moreso disc related, such that their manufacturing prevents the player from reading them properly and even causing the players' system firmware to become "out-of-sync" at times.


Moreover, I believe that some of these "flaky" disc's may be part of a poor batch. I have a disc by Jack McDuff & Joey DeFrancesco, titled "It's About Time" that seems to play well for the first two selections, but then starts to fail into the third selection (it skips badly all the way through, very dangerously). Therefore I returned the disc to BestBuy. Luckily they had another (new) copy, so I exchanged it. I came home, loaded it into my player, all excited, and it displayed the same exact behavior (in the exact same location) as the initial one. I could only think that these disc's were poorly manufactured, or experienced some weird handling problem causing some sort of "corruption" possibly.


Although I never got to try the same disc(s) on a different player. I'm using a (new)Denon DVD-3930CI universal player.