@kijanki Thank you for responding!! These last few years I got myself a hobby of reviving 1st generation Discmans. Have seen "all of the above" :-(
A few days ago I finally cracked and send an email to Steve Huntley, the designer of my Wadia (he is now with Resolution Audio). His response is below (posted without his permission, of course):
"There is a large variability in CD manufacturing and if the disc is not perfectly circular, or the center hole is off, or the pits are not equally spaced to the center hole its much harder for the player (laser and servo circuitry) to read it. So the lathe (Audio Desk Systeme CD Lathe) is exactly the right solution. Nothing specifically wrong with the Wadia...just picky about the discs it plays. Unfortunately discs themselves are not held to tight standards of manufacture."
"Of course a discman is designed to play anything and while the unit is jumping around all over the place....not exactly the design criteria of a Wadia mechanism. Also units (low cost players) have huge amounts of error correction going on so they can play CD's with peanut butter and jelly on them, kids finger prints, etc! That error correction does not help the sound....the less error correction the better. So again just a totally different design criteria."
What you and SH said confirms my suspicion that when I adjust Focus/Tracking gain, at low settings it skips easily but sounds better. Maybe unrelated, being spoiled by Wadia and Naim CDS3 it is difficult for me to judge the nuances of Discman's sound.
@kijanki I bought all the books I could find on CD players maintenance and repair, most of them have a few pages on how pits are transformed into sound. If there is anything you can suggest on the theory of different DACs and error-correction, please let me know.
A few days ago I finally cracked and send an email to Steve Huntley, the designer of my Wadia (he is now with Resolution Audio). His response is below (posted without his permission, of course):
"There is a large variability in CD manufacturing and if the disc is not perfectly circular, or the center hole is off, or the pits are not equally spaced to the center hole its much harder for the player (laser and servo circuitry) to read it. So the lathe (Audio Desk Systeme CD Lathe) is exactly the right solution. Nothing specifically wrong with the Wadia...just picky about the discs it plays. Unfortunately discs themselves are not held to tight standards of manufacture."
"Of course a discman is designed to play anything and while the unit is jumping around all over the place....not exactly the design criteria of a Wadia mechanism. Also units (low cost players) have huge amounts of error correction going on so they can play CD's with peanut butter and jelly on them, kids finger prints, etc! That error correction does not help the sound....the less error correction the better. So again just a totally different design criteria."
What you and SH said confirms my suspicion that when I adjust Focus/Tracking gain, at low settings it skips easily but sounds better. Maybe unrelated, being spoiled by Wadia and Naim CDS3 it is difficult for me to judge the nuances of Discman's sound.
@kijanki I bought all the books I could find on CD players maintenance and repair, most of them have a few pages on how pits are transformed into sound. If there is anything you can suggest on the theory of different DACs and error-correction, please let me know.