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Review 2 of 2
Price Paid:
$0.00 Summary:
My client is an aerobics instructor so this unit sees heavy use, but that is no excuse for a component failure after only three months in service. Not one, but TWO of the tac switches, play/pause and stop, had become intermittent in that short time. The play/pause in particular was almost inoperable by the time my client brought it in for repair.
On the bench I noted that the optical pickup is the KSS213, the most widely used and least costly on the market. As optics inevitably wear out, a cheap and readily available replacement is a big plus. Unfortunately, the design of the board requires a lengthy signal path from the mech to the main board, resulting in signal loss rendering the read sensitivity to merely mediocre. To compensate, the unit has electronic shock protection, which works well, but only if the disc is clear enough to be read by the inherently weak optical system.
A further issue is that the analog output goes into clipping on loud musical passages causing noticeable distortion with CD's that play with perfect fidelity on other machines. Strengths:
Price point for a unit with pitch control, wide range of pitch, quiet mech, sensible arrangement of controls, very readable display, remote control, coax and optical digital outputs, electronic shock protection works very well. Reads MP3s. Weaknesses:
Weak optical system causes slow reading of TOC on imperfect discs and failure to locate tracks in track search or random mode. Very early component failure. Distortion of analog audio on loud passages. Similar Products Used:
Hundreds. Perhaps thousands. I've been repairing CD players since they were invented.
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