CD players: Time taken to read the TOC.

[samjmann]

Hi,

My wife reckons I suffer from OCD, this probably proof....

As products get 'faster' and generally better a what we require of them, TOC reading actually seems to be getting slower. Years ago I had a Ferguson CD01 which I believe to be a Sony clone. It would read the TOC on a CD in around half a second after tray closing. At the moment I've got a Technics SL-P420 a bit newer than the Ferguson and that's as quick.

More recent products seem to take longer, yet many of them have not got track display or many other bells or whistles, so why the wait?

Like an idiot about 12 years ago I took the Ferguson the tip. It was built like a tank, but did need careful setting up for to play reliably. The clamp bearing had worn, and would 'knock' if not centred by hand. I tried all over to find another or the Sony equivalent to no avail. If I'd have known about this site then it'd be still going no doubt....!

If it's any help, I've got the original Ferguson Service Manual and fault finding guide for it.

Regards, SJM

[paulsherwin]

More modern players can handle lots of different formats in addition to standard audio and sometimes take a while to work out the disc contents.

My 1983 Marantz CD63 takes ages to read the TOC, and always has done.

[Radio Wrangler]

My old Sony CDP302ES was ready to go a couple of seconds after the drawer had slid shut. After almost 30 years the drawer gears were slipping, so an old friend came to an end.

Its replacement is an SCD-XA5300ES which was rather pricey, though not straying into holy water and unicorn hide territory.

This machine sounds nice, but the almost half-minute delay for it to spin a disc up and get ready to produce some sound is very very irritating. I thought Sony must have goofed with this machine, but it seems like others are the same.

Progress? What progress?

David

[mark pirate]

My wife reckons I suffer from OCD, this probably proof....

You are not alone, there seems to be a vast difference between players in the time taken to read the TOC.
My first player was a Philips CD104, this was quite quick once the drawer was closed, my Sony CDP791 is faster still.
My slowest player has to be the B&O CD50.
It is worth bearing in mind that an old high mileage player will take longer due to wear on the laser!

Mark

[julie_m]

It's not really a fair comparison, because CDs and CD players have changed since the first players were launched.

The original CD players only knew how to handle one kind of disc, with a single menu in a standard format in a fixed location on the disc and the music starting immediately after the menu. Life was simple then

One-time recordable discs that have been burned incrementally have a fragmentated menu; each music section may be followed by another menu and more music. Attempting to play such a disc in an older CD player results in it seeing only the tracks represented in the first menu; it ignores everything else. A player that is multi-session aware has to seek to the end of the music section and look for another menu section there. And repeat the process until no more valid menu sections are found.

Many CD players can also read CD-ROM discs full of MP3 tracks. These have a different kind of menu altogether; more like a folder's directory, listing the names of files and folders and where they are to be found on the disc. And they may begin with an old-style audio CD menu and tracks. Again, an MP3-aware CD player has to scan the disc for menus.

All this reading takes time -- the more sophisticated the CD player, the more it has to look for.

(When DVDs were standardised, they thought about this. One-time recordable DVDs leave room for a disc menu at the beginning, and place a temporary menu after each recorded programme. Any recorder, and some play-only players, can see these temporary menus and so play an unfinalised DVD±R. When the disc is finalised to allow playback on any machine, the final menu is re-written to its proper location at the beginning of the disc, so even a DVD player made before the advent of recordable DVDs can read them. Re-recordable DVDs allow for the menu to be in its proper place all the time, as it can be overwritten as needed, so they don't even need to be finalised to play in an old machine -- as long as it can handle the different reflectivity of the re-recordable disc.)

[McMurdo]

Some modern cd players include a flow chart of the TOC reading process in the service manual. Modern cd player firmware usually calibrates its digital servos, tracking and focus gain, offset and amplitude, disc eccentricity constants, on/off-track tolerance, 80/120mm diameter and other esoteric parameters on a disc by disc basis to ensure optimum playback stability with pressed, CDR and CDRW discs of various qualities. Old machines were fixed at the time of manufacture or by twiddling preset pots upon service, (some of these parameters not even being measured or capable of being so) and I guess that all takes time.

[Tractorfan]

Hi,
In similar vein, It seems to me that a lot of modern entertainment technology takes longer to 'boot up' than valves took to warm up! Or is it just me?
Cheers, Pete.

[paulsherwin]

Most digital devices are essentially computers running lots of firmware, so they can indeed take quite a while to boot. Digiboxes are an obvious example. My Panasonic DVD recorder takes about 20 seconds to wake up.

[mark pirate]

My Panasonic DVD recorder takes about 20 seconds to wake up.

I recently bought a Panasonic DMR-EZ27EB DVD recorder which sat there for ages with the display saying 'Please Wait'. I thought it was faulty, but it eventually came on and has worked fine ever since.

I have not noticed that more modern CD players take any longer to read the TOC, despite having CD-R & MP3 capability.
Although some cheap 'Mini systems' are very slow to read, probably due to poor design.

Mark

[Nickthedentist]

Originally Posted by mark pirate

I recently bought a Panasonic DMR-EZ27EB DVD recorder which sat there for ages with the display saying 'Please Wait'. I thought it was faulty, but it eventually came on and has worked fine ever since.

If mine's been disconnected from the mains for any length of time, it takes over a minute to do anything. That, coupled with the extremely dim VFD and lack of output to the TV initially, definitely gives the impression of the machine being faulty. I dread to think how many will have been thrown out because of a non-existant fault.

[vidjoman]

Some also do a check and try to connect to Interweb and if connected look to see if there is any updates to the software.

[samjmann]

Hi all,

Thanks AJS really informative answer. I had a JVC compact system about 20 years ago. I remember now looking at the service manual, the set-up for the CD servo was automatic. As Mcmurdo points out, it was optimised each time a disc was loaded. That used the Optima 6s laser. Thinking back the system did take perhaps a little longer than the old Ferguson CD01.

I don't know if CD test discs are used much now, occasionally we sometimes get a CD player with the complaint of 'disc fussy'. At the moment I've got the two disc set made by Philips one perfect and one with printed errors on the surface. The early players would struggle to play all the tracks, but todays units will sail through them. Sony also produced a test disc called YED?? This was a more severe test, and if there was the slightest problem in the servo or optical unit it would show. The last company I worked for had one of these, it then closed, and all the test gear went in the skip... Can anyone perhaps recall the disc type

Ps. This OCD thing is getting worse....

Regards, SJM