cd laser maintenence

mldennison

hi all,
i have had my denon cd changer (dcm 460) for probably about 10 years or so now and recently it has begun skipping with a number of my burned cd's. i am figuring the laser is off a little and that is why only the burned cd's. is there any sort of maintenence that can be performed to re-align the laser? the only other thing i could think of was to open it up and try to clean off the laser, maybe it has gotten dirty over the years? if anyone else has had any luck with fixing this problem i would much appreciate it.

mike

billbillw

You could try cleaning it, but over the years, I've found that when they start skipping/stuttering, they need a new optical pickup unit. I think the laser diodes get weak over time. Burned CDs are the first to go because they are less reflective and require more laser power to read them. I could be wrong however.

mldennison

thanks bill, that is pretty much what i expected. guess i will just wait it out and see how much longer i can get out of it.

terra1

I know this is an old thread.
I found this thread while searching to see if others had my problem with the DCM-460.

I just purchased a Denon DCM-460 from Goodwill a couple days ago.

Some brands and batches within brands don't play on my ancient Kenwood DP-700. So I tried the ones that had problems and all played fine on the DCM-460 except one started skipping/stuttering.

Tried cleaning the problem Cd and it seemed to work fine for awhile, then started skipping again towards the end. I noticed it did have a definite line scratch toward the outer end where it was having problems.

Last night, I opened up the case, cleaned laser, rails, and lubed spindles, etc.

Today, it played the problem disc all the way through no problems.
For now. Knock on wood fingers crossed.

Aside from the clunky loading and unloading, music sounds great.
Seems to tame some of my harsher brighter CDs.

Serendipity

I've cleaned my CDP a few times and it always stopped the skipping.

Fongolio

Some of them (including a Denon 3800 I still own) have adjustable screws for the laser alignment. I have had good success with playing around with them to solve some serious skipping problems. It's very trial and error though. And not all units are adjustable like the 3800.