Hi, Sorry for a beginner question. I’m currently looking at few discman options such as Denon DCP-50/100 in the marketplace. I noticed few sellers mentioned their Cd players can only work with genuine CDs and not all CDs. I thought a CD players would play all music CDs? or does it imply there’s an issue with the laser or the mechanisms? Thanks
@Lycos The player not reading CD-Rs can mean one of 2 things: - the laser is weak and is not able to produce a strong enough RF on the lower reflectivity CD-Rs; - the way CD-R has been written is incompatible with CD-DA format; The CD needs to be written as individual tracks + ToC. If it's written as files in a FAT file system, no normal CD player will read it (exception are the ones which read MP3s).
It's always hit or miss for me, I bought a big box of Verbatim from Amazon and they seem to play in most of my players. Unfortunately some brands won't.
Thanks. If the seller said their player can only by guaranteed to play genuine CD, is that reasonable thing - or should I avoid buying it? Im slightly concerned it’s used to mask issue with the laser as @Valentin has mentioned.
If a normal pre-recorded CD plays fine, I wouldn't worry about it. If you have a stack of your own burns, it might be an issue, I've found different brands might not work but sometimes you get lucky.
This is a pretty vague statement, which doesn't tell much. I would ask the seller more, like if the player has ever read a CD-R or not, if it skips at all on a "pressed" CD, even if it's just at the beginning. If the player works perfectly with pressed CDs (with no skipping at all), then I wouldn't be concerned about it. However if it tends to skip on some less than perfect pressed CDs and also not reading CD-R, that would be a bit of a concern.
It can mean that the CD player was designed before CD-Rs left the research labs. I find it incredible that they ever managed to make CD-R work. Things like MiniDiscs are understandable as they were designed from the start to be a recordable media, but CD-R seems about as likely as a cheap device that lets you cut your own vinyl using a laser. Of course CD-R wasn't always cheap. I have a 1993 computer magazine in which there is an advert for a CD writer costing about £2000. The blank discs were £25 each. Not surprisingly the advert was aimed at businesses.