QuestionHi Cleggsan, I have a NAD 514 CD Player that recently has began to randomly skip when I play a CD. At first I thought it was a couple of bad CD's with flaws, but it is doing this on everyone. It will play for a period of time, then skip, skip, play for a while, then skip some more, etc. Do you have any idea what may be causing this? Does the lens need to be cleaned and how does one do that? Does the CD Player assembly need to be replaced? Let me know what you think and thanks! Blanchjoe
AnswerLense cleagning may help. Just use a cotton q-tip; flick it across the lense a few times to dislodge the microscopic particles that may be stuck to the surface.
But, mostly, the problem is related to the laser diode becoming weak in its output. With lower output there are more errors in the data and the error detection and correction circuits finally become overloaded and cannot keep up with the high rate of data.
There are other possibilities as well. Maybe over time the optical pickup has become misaligned. Or, the digital decoder is becoming weak and is not compiling the data smoothly for the digital to analog conversion process. Etc.
Unfortunately, the cost of repair is quite high due to the complexity of the circuits and the labor required to make a proper alignment. It is unfortunate, but the cost of purchasing a new player is less than to repair it.
Only in the case of a very expensive player would it be a practicle matter for professional repairs.
In your case, this NAD unit is pretty expensive, but getting old. Old players are not worthy to keep around because they mostly will not play cdrs and other home recorded cds well. And, they eventually become prone to dropouts and other ailments - as in your case. So, I would recommend you replace it with a new unit. If you are an audiophile you will want to shop around, but if it is being used for just general audio you can replace it for $9.95 and up.
Hope this helps.
CLeggsan
