Hi,

I recently burned some CDs and wanted to listen them in the car. I have a SC816 (the one with a single in-dash cd) which refuses to read the disks (the disk automatically pops out after few seconds). I called the dealer to find out if there are any adjustments to be made to the cd laser, but he said there is nothing to be done. Either buy a changer or stay with regular cds. Someone else had this problem? Any suggestions?

thank you,

Serban

I have SC-815, and it can play most/all CD-Rs, from pale/colorless to dark

blue. Unlike the Alpine changer, however, it cannot properly track 80 min

discs. And towards the end of 74 min discs, it sometimes mistracks (but it

also scours the surface of discs towards the end as it ejects them, so...).

But it always plays them (as best it can); I've never had one "rejected".

(OTOH, when compusa tells me I can buy 90 minute CDs, I don't buy them.)

But all software/firmware has versions/releases, and just because two decks

have the same model designation does not necessarily mean that they will

both treat all CD-Rs the same...

NEVER use TAO (track-at-once) for audio CDs. While you can get away with

that on discs with silence between tracks, you can't count on all discs

(and tracks) being like that! I'd never heard of a player that looks at

the protection bit (it's set to ON on virtually all CDs...), but it's

always possible; a good burning pgm should let you [re]set that.

Along those lines, however, you can burn audio CDs (TAO and DAO) in more

than one session. PCs' CD drives will be able to play the audio tracks in

subsequent sessions, but audio CD players will not.

ALWAYS use Exact Audio Copy http://ExactAudioCopy.de for extracting data

from audio CDs as it is the only one (in Bill's world; there's CDparanoia

for *nix users) that checks its work, other [mere] "rippers" blindly accept

as gospel whatever dirt/scratches/mangled_data the reader thought it

glimpsed once... (If that sounds silly to you, consider that data CDs use

approximately 100M more [out of 750M total] for information related to

positioning and error detection/correction than do audio CDs, making a read

error a good 1000 times more likely on an audio CD than a data CD...) In

case you didn't realize it, it's generally much harder to read an audio

CD without errors than to write them without errors (but, to be fair, discs

being burned are generally free of dirt and scratches).

If you're lucky, EAC will also recognize your burner. If not, perhaps your

burning program can use its standard CUE sheets... If not, you can still

use your program to burn the tracks extracted by EAC. EAC supports read

and write offsets, making it possible to copy audio tracks with bit-perfect

precision (which is, after all, the holy grail of digital audio...). (And

if that weren't enough, it also provides a GUI to drive the LAME.exe, can

rename MP3s from their ID3 tags, has full CDDB (+ freedb.org) support, full

support for CD-text, gap detection, WAV file editor, WAV file recorder, WAV

file comparer, and, best of all, EAC is postcardware!)

EAC isn't the easiest to configure/use, but it's the *only* one that makes

copies that are good enough that one needn't label them as copies and also

retain the original. If you're interested, see

http://www.ping.be/satcp/eacoffsets01.htm for a chart that contains config

settings for many drives. EAC prompts its users (well, configurers) to

think about offsets, and the ability to read(/write) into lead-ins and

lead-outs, and whether or not your reader has C2 detection (and whether or

not it can be trusted). It's not as easy as EZ CD Creator. But it is far

superior in most regards (all, that affect audio CD quality).

If "sounds the same; I didn't notice any difference" is your standard, then

perhaps EAC is not for you. But if only the best will do, then EAC it is.

Who has time to listen to extracted tracks to make sure they were properly

extracted?

EAC does!

Of course, there are folks who see EAC as weak and less powerful, because

other [mere] "rippers" skim CDs more quickly than EAC (proof-)reads them.

(But as any autocrosser can tell you, it's not how fast you negotiate the

course; it's how fast you negotiate the course with zero cones knocked

down!) Or, in the case of unreadable CDs, I've heard of folks who've

complained that EAC still hadn't finished after 12 hours(!!!) but who said

their other program finished in 5 minutes. But do not be confused: that

"other program" didn't even notice that the CD was unreadable, while EAC

was attempting to read the unreadable! And also do not worry: EAC has

non-"secure" modes that are as sloppy as other [mere] "rippers" (handy for

those unreadable tracks/CDs...).

Bottom line: why "rip" data when you can extract it with perfection?

Hi Dave,

thank you for your detailed and informative response. I fully agree with you and slowly start realizing that programs like Exact Audio Copy make more and more sense. The reason is simple (but strange): digital copies of CDs are not always 100% identical. This personal observation is based on a simple experiment I did a while ago - I burned the same CD on several CD-R at different speeds (2X, 4X, 8X, 12X), then copied the (images of the)original and the CD-R on the hard drive, and did a byte-by-byte comparison of the images. To my surprise, the faster the copy (12X) the highest the difference/error from the original. Why? No idea. Conclusion? I'm not burning CDs faster than 4X no matter how good the burner, software, or disks are.

thanks again,

Serban

Higher quality cd-r's worked for me.

Serban,

Sorry to hear you're having the same problem I experienced. Boy oh boy is the SC816 a piece of S*@#$T. Anyway, I use a Mac G3 and a Plextor CD Burner. I was getting concerned about my computer rig when I started experiencing the same thing you've described. However, after much experimentation and troubleshooting I've figured out that the 816 is very sensitive to the media you put into it. When I switched to Taiyo Yuden, which is one of the CD-R brands recommended by the manufacturer of my burner, the problem cleared up immediately. Before that I was using Quantegy, Ricoh and Kodak discs. The Quantegy works most of the time, but the Ricoh and Kodak were not good matches. Another interesting point is the Kodak discs I was using were 80 minute discs, but I've since learned that 80 minute CD-R's can cause many read problems with most consumer audio cd players. So stick with standard 74 minute discs; the extra 6 minutes is not worth the grief. The reason I dislike the 816 so much is because each of the discs which had read problems worked perfectly with all my other audio equipment. The 816 also continutes to have read and skip problems with store bought audio CD's. So as long as your CD-R's work with other equipment, just assume it's the 816 and try another brand of media until you find a good match. I highly recommend the Taiyo Yuden discs I mentioned above. A great place I've found to purchase them is a company called CDR Outlet (a very reputable company I've ordered from many times before). Good Luck!

Check them out:

http://www.cdroutlet.com/

Hi Zeek,

thank you (actually thanks to everyone) for the reply. I was using Nero 5.5.3 as software, and both Plextor & Toshiba as CD burners. The CDs read w/o problems on the computer and on several other cd players. It may be that the media was not good; I was using Imation 24X, 80 min, and maybe they don't read wery well on this unit. I'll start experimenting.

thx,

Serban

I have found that when I burn CD's in Nero, my in dash 3-disc changer has a hard time reading them, unless I turn off Disc-At-Once and take the protection off each track. Hope this helps.

double check if you used cdr's or cd-rw's. big difference. you should be able to play cd-r's but not cd-rw's.

good luck

francis

I'm not sure of the model of my player, but its a stock '98 S70. I have no problem playing CDRs UNLESS, as other people have pointed out, the disc is not closed properly. I've also found trouble with colored CDRs. I had a pack of multicolored ones and the black CDRs would not play at all. Recently I bought a spindle of "music CDRs" and those seem to work the best. I never get reading errors with these. Oh, and I use EZ CD Creator 4.

I play CD-R all the time in my 816 in a '97 854. Not sure of the burner program you are using, but make sure the CD's are "closed". I use Adaptec EZ CD creator and have no problems at all.

Best of Luck

Andrew

Are you sure the CD's can be played at all?

I had a friend with a V70 base model, and had the Volvo (Alpine) oe cd changer installed. When he first tried playing CD-R's in the car, it wouldn't work, and he assumed it was because they were CD-R's. However, he soon realized that that the CD-R's weren't burned properly, and couldn't be played on anything.

So if his Volvo OE changer can play CD-R's, I can't see why yours wouldn't.

Reading burnt CDs is a problem with a lot of CD players - the programming varies between burners and some are not Red Book standard, being designed primarily for computers which use a different standard.

If they have been "finished" they will be more compatible with CD players, but if you're half way through making a compilation and want to hear it in the car, or you're using CD-RW with their less reflective coatings, you're most likely out of luck.