UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Powered By Google Custom Search Vintage Radio and TV Service Data

Go Back   UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum > Specific Vintage Equipment > Vintage Audio (record players, hi-fi etc)

Notices

Vintage Audio (record players, hi-fi etc) Amplifiers, speakers, gramophones and other audio equipment.

Closed Thread
 
Thread Tools
Old 20th Jun 2019, 1:08 pm   #1
martin.m
Hexode
 
martin.m's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Bishop Auckland, County Durham, UK.
Posts: 373
Default Replacement for Philips CD104

Around 1990, I was given a faulty CD104 which I managed to repair (double sided print connections). It gave faithful service for over ten years but after a long spell out of use there are now problems. I have no test equipment other than a digital multimeter and don't think I would be able to fix it. Is there a CD player I could buy secondhand or even new that would have the same performance as the CD104? I know that, in theory, all CD players should sound the same but the Philips was a vast improvement over the Comet own brand Proline player that I was using 30 years ago.
__________________
Regards
Martin

Last edited by martin.m; 20th Jun 2019 at 1:26 pm. Reason: grammar
martin.m is offline  
Old 20th Jun 2019, 1:36 pm   #2
Craig Sawyers
Dekatron
 
Craig Sawyers's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,942
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

Wow - the CD104 is almost a relic now. I bought mine shortly after CD was launched 32 years ago. I sold it after a few years and moved on.

Almost any modern player will outperform it. Here is one that will not break the bank https://www.richersounds.com/cambrid...cd-player.html at £149.

Digital technology, chipsets and speed, and A/D converters have moved on massively in three+ decades.

Craig
Craig Sawyers is offline  
Old 20th Jun 2019, 1:45 pm   #3
Craig Sawyers
Dekatron
 
Craig Sawyers's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,942
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

An alternative is a DVD or Blue Ray player. Most of these also play CD's. So you get a Blue ray player and a CD player all in one slim block.

Randomly here is one that does absolutely everything for £234 https://www.richersounds.com/panason...eeview-hd.html

Craig
Craig Sawyers is offline  
Old 20th Jun 2019, 2:13 pm   #4
ben
Dekatron
 
ben's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Madrid, Spain / Wirral, UK
Posts: 7,484
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

I have always found Dvd players a rather poor subsitute for CD players. The ultra basic display means that things like programming are impossible without a TV. Many also seem to be sluggish to respond when in audio Cd mode.
__________________
Regards,
Ben.
ben is offline  
Old 20th Jun 2019, 4:10 pm   #5
Craig Sawyers
Dekatron
 
Craig Sawyers's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,942
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

Remember that we're comparing this to a CD104! Anyhow since you can get a dedicated CD player for £150 that is certainly the way to go as a direct replacement.

Craig
Craig Sawyers is offline  
Old 20th Jun 2019, 4:30 pm   #6
Lucien Nunes
Rest in Peace
 
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: London, UK.
Posts: 2,508
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

It depends what you mean by 'the same performance'. As mentioned above the CD104 is an early design of player, technically superseded by most decent players from the mid 1980s onwards. Its 14-bit oversampled DAC is one of its limiting factors, as is the unpredictable performance on many CD-Rs (if you use CD-R). However, I have found the radial-tracking machines such as the CDM-1-equipped CD104 could often play imperfect and scratched CDs without skipping or uncorrectable errors where others failed. I agree that DVD players can be clunky compared to audio CD players and would personally avoid them for that usage.

Out of interest, what exactly are the problems you have experienced with your CD104? Although they have many failure modes, these are all pretty well documented. Some adjustments can be done with just a multimeter although sometimes you need a scope to look at the RF.
Lucien Nunes is offline  
Old 20th Jun 2019, 4:39 pm   #7
Welsh Anorak
Dekatron
 
Welsh Anorak's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: North Wales, UK.
Posts: 6,884
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

I agree. The CD104 will read a disc almost instantly, and we would use it as a machine of choice when no other machine would read a disc.
Most problems we've had on the 104 have been plated through holes on the PCB, often requiring multiple repairs, dry joints on the regulators and (rarely) the laser unit itself.
Also the machine wieighs twice as much as any replacement!
__________________
Glyn
www.gdelectronics.wales
Welsh Anorak is online now  
Old 20th Jun 2019, 4:48 pm   #8
paulsherwin
Moderator
 
paulsherwin's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Oxford, UK
Posts: 27,787
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

I would recommend that you try a DVD player simply because they sound very good and they are available FOC or for pennies. They aren't much use with a modern TV if they don't upscale to HDMI so the world is awash with the things. You find them dumped in skips, at car boot sales and in flea markets. I found a very nice Yamaha unit in a skip which does audio upsampling amongst other things.

The displays do tend to be limited or nonexistent, but some modern audio players have pretty useless displays too. The significance of the display depends on your pattern of use - if you mostly play CDs from start to finish or just play single tracks then the display doesn't really matter.
paulsherwin is online now  
Old 20th Jun 2019, 5:12 pm   #9
fetteler
Octode
 
fetteler's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2011
Location: Staffordshire Moorlands, UK.
Posts: 1,464
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

Hi Martin,
My slightly cheeky question is, "What are you going to do with your old CD104?" I wonder if I could perhaps have it as spares for mine? I am working my way round to getting it going again after many years sat in a box in the barn and I'm certain that a donor would be really useful.
Cheers,
Steve.
__________________
Those who lack imagination cannot imagine what is lacking...
fetteler is offline  
Old 20th Jun 2019, 8:13 pm   #10
Nickthedentist
Dekatron
 
Nickthedentist's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 17,820
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

The charity shops round here often have 1990s vintage machines by Sony, Philips, Technics etc. for £5 or so. Worth a look.
Nickthedentist is online now  
Old 20th Jun 2019, 9:54 pm   #11
samjmann
Heptode
 
samjmann's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2014
Location: Nottingham, UK.
Posts: 645
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

Wow haven't worked on one of those for a while. The plated thru connections were by far and away the most common problem. I de-soldered the area and put a thin wire through the hole and resoldered it. This seemed to be a permanent cure. I did have one that was very disc fussy, all that was needed was the turntable height adjustment was wrong. You set this in service mode with the disc stopped and the focus servo active all you needed was a DMM.

I've a couple of late 80's and early 2000's Technics players that give good results. The later one plays CD-R's without problem. Both cost very little and look good. SJM
samjmann is offline  
Old 20th Jun 2019, 10:32 pm   #12
Lloyd 1985
Nonode
 
Lloyd 1985's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Coningsby, Lincolnshire, UK.
Posts: 2,814
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

The CD104 is an excellent machine, I have one here, found it in the antiques shop in Sutton on sea a few years ago for £12!

I’ve tried many CD players, 2 stand out to me as excellent, the CD104, and quite surprisingly, a Matsui CDS 1000, I know, you must be thinking ‘why?! Matsui is cheap tat!’ Well this player just happens to have a Philips mech, with the radial tracking, it’s been in my family from new in the early 90’s, and never broken down, and it has certainly seen plenty of use.

I’ve also tried DVD players as CD players and found them to be annoying to use, take ages to start up and the most irritating feature of one (which was actually part of a Hi-fi system!) was to add 2 second gaps between tracks on an album, most annoying on something where gaps were not intended, such as on live albums.

I certainly think your CD104 is worthy of repair

Regards
Lloyd
Lloyd 1985 is online now  
Old 20th Jun 2019, 10:51 pm   #13
martin.m
Hexode
 
martin.m's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Bishop Auckland, County Durham, UK.
Posts: 373
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

Thank you for your replies and comments. The Philips had been wrapped up and unused since around 2000 due to house moves. When tried a few days ago it would accept a disc, read the table of contents and go into play mode but not produce any audio output. I left the machine running for about ten minutes then everything worked fine. This morning it had general difficulty reading discs and playing. After leaving switched on for about eight hours, everything seems to work normally now. I wonder if this indicates trouble with electrolytic caps or if they just needed time to re-form after twenty years of inactivity. If things are still not right I will certainly have a go at fixing it. Looking on the Internet this model seems to have an "audiophile" following. I don't get involved with mystique and snake oil but the CD104 sounds a lot better than the Comet own brand player that it replaced many years ago.
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	Philips CD104.jpg
Views:	331
Size:	46.5 KB
ID:	185440  
__________________
Regards
Martin
martin.m is offline  
Old 20th Jun 2019, 11:03 pm   #14
paulsherwin
Moderator
 
paulsherwin's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Oxford, UK
Posts: 27,787
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

There's a good chance that the electrolytics have reformed, though bad electrolytics aren't uncommon in players of that era so the fault may return.

The CD104 was one of the best sounding players of its time and can still give good results. The main limitation is a tizziness and colouration of some high frequency sounds, which is a characteristic of all the Philips 14 bit players. This effect is much more noticeable with some amp/speaker combinations than others.

If you decide you want a replacement player of similar vintage, the slightly later Marantz CD42/CD52 would be a good choice. This is a 16 bit player. There are a number of stock faults, but these are easy to fix.
paulsherwin is online now  
Old 21st Jun 2019, 7:11 am   #15
Craig Sawyers
Dekatron
 
Craig Sawyers's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 4,942
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

More than you ever wanted to know about the foibles of the CD104 and early derivatives, how to modify and fix them is the ever interesting Keith Snook http://www.keith-snook.info/cd-players.html

All of which says to me why bother?

Craig
Craig Sawyers is offline  
Old 21st Jun 2019, 7:36 am   #16
Graceman
Diode
 
Join Date: Jun 2017
Location: near Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Posts: 9
Default Re: Replacement for Philips CD104

I started a thread about 3 or 4 weeks ago about my two non-functioning CD104s. One of them had been unused for at least 20 years. Each of them would spin up and then stop. After running the test sequence, they would play a while and then stop. I asked for advice here and I read everything I could find and the solder links seemed the obvious place to start. I replaced each one with a wire link. I now have two fully working players.

Give it a go!
Graceman is offline  
Closed Thread

Thread Tools



All times are GMT +1. The time now is 12:08 pm.


All information and advice on this forum is subject to the WARNING AND DISCLAIMER located at https://www.vintage-radio.net/rules.html.
Failure to heed this warning may result in death or serious injury to yourself and/or others.


Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Copyright ©2002 - 2023, Paul Stenning.