So I found a beautiful Magnavox FD-2000 CD Player at a thrift store. It's an extremely rare, very early deck. Branded Magnavox, but it's a Philips CD-200 clone (it even has a Philips CD-200 sticker still attached to the bottom of the cabinet). My understanding is that people didn't know Philips as an electronic brand, or even at all, here in the US, so they put it out through Magnavox. Along with the Sony CDP-101, it's the first to deck to be offered here in the US, back in 1983. This thing is in near mint condition, and it works, somehow (quite well as a matter of fact...it sounds great.) The only issue it has is a weird one, and I can't find much helpful info out there (and a service manual is impossible to find...the Philips is in Dutch.) It plays great, tracks great, no issues at all with playback. However, if I turn it on and immediately try to play a disc, it makes a low frequency humming sound, and when the disc plays, there's a bit of crackling and distortion for about 30 seconds. Then it goes away, and never comes back. It plays everything I've thrown at it, and it's a really nice looking deck, much nicer than the Sony CDP-101. I want this thing to keep working, and I know this is a minor thing, but I'm wondering if it's something I should take care of before it becomes something else. Anyone have any idea what I'm dealing with here? Thanks in advance for any guidance you might be able to offer.
Very early CD Player (Magnavox FD-2000) distortion on cold start...What am I dealing with here?
restorer-john
Addicted Member
I would immediately stop using the deck and replace the axial Philips branded (blue) electrolytic capacitors on the CDM-0 mechanism PCB or you will have way more serious problems when the mech fails.
IIRC, you will need a mixture of torx and philips drivers, plenty of patience and be extremely careful of the ribbon cable and connectors to the swing arm.
I can give you a list of parts needed for the CDM-0 mk2 mech, but yours could be slightly different (I don't think so, but best to check)
As for your low frequency humming sound, is it mechanical or electrical, ie does the hum come from the line outs into your amp or physically from the machine?
Bear in mind, the majority of electrolytics are Philips manufactured in those machines and have proved to be terribly unreliable in the long term. I have a CD-202 (84) here and a CD-650 which are both in need of complete capacitor replacements due to most of them being way out of spec. Other than that, those early machines are fun to play with, and sound pretty darned good too.
IIRC, you will need a mixture of torx and philips drivers, plenty of patience and be extremely careful of the ribbon cable and connectors to the swing arm.
I can give you a list of parts needed for the CDM-0 mk2 mech, but yours could be slightly different (I don't think so, but best to check)
As for your low frequency humming sound, is it mechanical or electrical, ie does the hum come from the line outs into your amp or physically from the machine?
Bear in mind, the majority of electrolytics are Philips manufactured in those machines and have proved to be terribly unreliable in the long term. I have a CD-202 (84) here and a CD-650 which are both in need of complete capacitor replacements due to most of them being way out of spec. Other than that, those early machines are fun to play with, and sound pretty darned good too.
Thanks for the reply. I figured it might be the caps. My thinking was that on cold start the out-of-spec caps were causing the platter to spin at a slightly slower/faster speed, thus causing the distortion in playback, and that after warming up, they were finding the right tolerances, or something like that. Anyway, so okay, I'll bench it for now.
So I tried disassembling the cabinet, because I was going to clean the internals, get rid of any dust/dirt, etc. on the connects et al, but gave up after removing like 10 screws and still nowhere near cracking it open. This thing is locked up tight! I guess just take every visible screw out and start gently pulling it apart?
In terms of the caps, a parts list would be great. I'm guessing this is the CDM0 assembly? But could it be the CDM1? In any case, yes, any further info/insight you might have would be greatly appreciated.
The hum is line level, it plays through the speakers, not mechanical. And as I said, only on cold startup on the first track. The distortion is mild crackling, like a turntable playing a damaged LP.
Thanks again for the reply! Very helpful.
Spindle motors on these can be slow to spin up when cold, sold one like that a couple years back. In that one it manifested as a disc read error issue though, not the noises OP describes. Worked perfectly after a few minutes of warmup though, which sounds similar.
John
John
There is useful info that is generic for the early generation Philips players in here.
http://www.keith-snook.info/cd-players.html
http://www.keith-snook.info/cd-players.html
