Philips CD650 CD player no play Lets fix it

[@alexispieltin9379]

Well done, another vintage equipment saved from the recycler. And it's a Philips top ranking CD player with famous TDA1541, the reference DAC of the late 80's and early 80's. I've recently checked a quite similar (most recent) Marantz CD50 with a TDA1541A, and it's always nice and easy to access and service. Many of these CD players were then made in Holland or Belgium, and always had complete tech and service documentation available, but English international versions should normally be available somewhere as second version. You can conclude you can always take advantages learning foreign languages like german or french, but don't miss chinese as interesting options... For the external aspect, many of these machines produced by Philips group (incl. Radiola, Marantz, and other local brand names), were not as attractive as Japanese (fewer options, less buttons), but had numerous audio advantages and also a CDM 2 or 4 series laser mechanisms. On this early one, you could also benefit of other tech advantages like easy oversampling mods on a separate board, some IC on support to future enhancement... Let say you can easily mod it using the core DAC IC and change oversampling and correcting circuitry, output OP amps, audio condos... Some also replace Cinch output plugs for better gold plated ones and so on. Plastic chassis is quite "full" and rigid, so you don't have plenty room for large experimental tube circuitry or special devices, but it's a real top sounding machine like it is. The TDA1541 is also a special circuit, as it evoluted in the factory process, some of the best TDA1541A audio chips were later selected and specially branded F1 then S1 and S2, and so on, with "crown" markings... These enhanced linearity and distortion chips were then used in the most appreciated DAC of a generation. Many manufacturers worldwide currently used these different versions in numerous CDs. Let name a brand audio manufacturer from the late 80's and early 90's, and they probably had one or multiple models including that specific DA technology. In fact, quality "16 bits" chips choice was not so large, Burr-Brown and Philips had 95% market share! Things later evolved with "one bit" technology, but let say the audio fans did not found their champion as easily then: even most recent generation DAC are still musically challenged by this old technology, especially high end series (a Marantz CD80 with CDM1 mech. + TDA1541A S1 "simple crown" with it's massive 35lbs chassis or Sony equivalent CDP555ES) are still serious contender in audio comparisons. I've also appreciated your rant about cheap CDs with labels: every CD has a weak point, it's reflective metallic thin surface is just beyond the printed material. So if this layer is not especially protected, laser optics cannot focus on data dots and track! Some even predicted a massive failure of aging CDs in the mid 90's, as numerous early printed discs incorporated aggressive inked materials, eating the aluminium foil... This prooved less problematic for most of the production, but these low cost recordable CDs are notably fragile and prone to fail with a single nail scratch or marker line! The best way to "print" a CD is using special sublimation ink printer (costly industrial process), or special laser sensitive reverse coating aka lightscribe (++ time consuming!).

[@RTBNL]

The early TDA1541a versions were tested and marked. Later on the manufacturing process was really reliable resulting in all late 1541a examples play just as well as a single or double crown.

[@joshuamartindale868]

My Bang and Olufsen Beogram CD3300 made by Philips has the TDA1541 DAC chip too its sounds great! Nothing like it!

[@user-hv6qs3eo2u]

Hi, thank you I fixed my 37 year's old CD player !

[@litzdog911]

Love the paw prints on the case!

[@CLS2086]

What i've learned on these generation of players, is to replace all caps first with good new tested ones, especially the small one under the mecanism. Then, you can start adjustment.

[@MustangBoss1973]

yes its normally the cap on the bottom board that's the issue

[@cdong007]

Hey, thank you soooo much! you saved my life. The one I have is a Magnavox CDB650. I only found the focus gain adjuster in the middle of the PCB, but it starts to read CDs - but none of any CDRs. I am very happy :)

[@12voltvids]

This one playing CD and CDR no problem. CDR is hit and miss on the old pre CDR players.

[@jesuiskiwi4033]

Good work, well done, sent my one of these for no disk repair and got told it was not worth repairing !

[@carlinfamily1157]

Learning heaps here. Thanks! I had a CD650 from new, should never have let it go. Incredibly understated machine. I do still have the 'Mission' version of it called the PCM II. I honestly cannot remember what the tweaks were but a very similar style of sound. Thanks to your video I have an idea of where to start when it dies.

[@emmarandom9609]

Brilliant, I've been playing with a Philips CD460 from this era recently with the same DAC & had a feeling it'd be a simple adjustment to fix the no-play & it was indeed. Now all I need to do is clean it up, replace the loading belt & attend to some bad connections in the LED display and we can choose between having an "audiophile grade" CD player that looks cool or banking a swift £100... Not a bad return on a £5 investment, but it does sound nice even after just setting by ear Just have to hope the Lockfit transistors in my old PM3200X 'scope have held out since I last fixed it, not had an excuse to fire it up for a couple o years! Thanks again Dave, you're a star. Donation coming your way when I can afford one. 73, Dan.

[@andynoon2584]

Good vid as always, and noticed the cat paw prints on the cover like one of the other comments. Maybe he could star in a few more of your vids. He might lend a paw as well.

[@svenschwingel8632]

I have a buddy who just loves the TDA1541 so much. He jumped through lots of hoops to get his old DTC-1000ES DAT machine working for that exact reason 😉

[@12voltvids]

I was given a 650 with a sticking door. Fixed that quick and it went into my system. Does sound great.

[@svenschwingel8632]

@@12voltvids isn't it funny that people still love and prefer these old DACs, given what we have today with 384kHz and 32Bits? 🤔

[@12voltvids]

@@svenschwingel8632 It's the same thing with cassettes and vinyl. I do have a few of these old DAC players and they do have an audible difference. To everyone that has heard it they agree it sounds smoother.

[@svenschwingel8632]

@@12voltvids I gotta tell you: the best digital sound I have ever heard on my system comes from my ZA5ES DAT machines., followed by my PCM-2700. I also use a Pioneer N-50A network streamer with the latest DAC technology for all kinds of HighRes formats but this thing - although good - doesn't really come close. Also my Sony SACD 770QS doesn't come close. I don't know what they did with those DATs but they sound absolutely amazing.

[@tonyd1149]

Good job on that sir. (Without schematics, even), that's excellent. Thank you for making and posting this video.

[@johnmclone4680]

I can see from the paw mark's on top of the CD player that your cat was trying to take the top off it before you did - and now it's playing Purr-fectly everybody's happy !

[@12voltvids]

Yes it was sitting here for a couple of days b4 i got to it. I don't really have a service schedule. I get to stuff when i get to it. That one came in about a week ago.

[@thomasraden]

@@12voltvids If you think a cat is interested in your attention, thats wrong. Cats are narcissistics. It wants heated spaces and food. I dont understand though why they need to walk infront of your keyboard all the time when you sit there typing.

[@GeorgeGeorge-xj2bc]

This one must have laser unit older than the very common CDM12 or equivalent VAM12 that once were widely available in the market.I have replaced a ton of them these years when the problem of skip,no read or suddenly stop didnt fixed only with the lens cleaning.And the price was quite cheap about 10-12 euro around the year 2010.The philips swinging mechanism was nearly impossible to be found in the market but was the top of the tops.

[@frankreiserm.s.8039]

God has blessed you well with regard to your knowledge and skill. Frank

[@KB-os6lh]

I have a 1989 Cambridge Audio CD3 cd player. 4 x TDA1541A CDM1mk2 drive. Killer sounding machine.

[@jaceknasalski1422]

Good work! I like your vids, they are very helpful and knowledgeable. It's nice that you share your knowledge with others (not Others from "Lost" ;-) ). I have Philips CD634 and it works still after 30 years without repair! However it has sometimes troubles with reading some tracks on some CDs and don't read CD-RW's at all. It has a SAA7325 DAC and maybe I will try to fix it some day.

[@graemedross]

lol... 8:10 "oopps" the radial arm smacking back and forwards between its limits. Been years since I heard that sound

[@Barbarapape]

The smooth warm sound of the infamous TDA1541 series DAC's made them easier to listen to than the competitors from Japan. I had a CD650 and kept it for a few years until i upgraded to Denon and Sony ES players. What always irked me about Philps and Marantz players was the light weight plastic construction, and noisy mechanics. The better Japanese players had far better construction, and almost silent mechanicals.

[@richardswearingen6572]

Have you ever used lightscribe. I bought a highend custom HP laptop back in 2009, 17" screen, 1tb hard drive, 16gb ram, windows 7 64-bit, i7-920 processor, fingerprint reader, and lightscribe DVD player. Anyway lightscribe had special discs that you put in upsidedown in the player and you could engrave your titles or anything on the disc. I still use cds today that I engraved with lightscribe back then and have no issues with them. They seemed to be very high quality discs and then dissapeared a couple years later

[@12voltvids]

My BDR burner in my PC will do lightscribe but I have never used it as I don't have any disks. They were much more expensive at the time, and CDR here are stupid expensive thanks to a .40 tax for each blank because we are assumed to be guilty of recording music on them, and the music industry needs our support to combat lost sales due to downloading. As least that is the bullshit they feed us as they add a bunch of tax at the register. A spindle of 100 blank CDR disks is about 100 bucks, and 40 of that is the stupid copyright tax, and then another 12% on top of that onto the total.

[@richardswearingen6572]

@@12voltvids holy cow thats crazy. I can buy 100 packs of CDR for under $20

[@12voltvids]

@@richardswearingen6572 Not here. CDR are about 3x the price of dvd-r. Copy tax added. Quite the sticker shock when go to the store to buy a spindle if 100 advertised for 30 bucks and there is 39 in tax added at the checkout. Then 12% tax added on top of that. I stockpiled about 200 of the good green disks before the tax went on and some are still sealed. Use them for personal stuff and the cheap crap ones for clients when i audio archive.

[@supermasterPIK]

@@12voltvids if you import them e. g. from... south america or another country can you avoid the tax?

[@JacGoudsmit]

Even if you can't find a service manual for a late 1980s Philips CD player (in your own language), chances are that you can probably find the service manual for another Philips CD player from the same era. The mechanism, chips and schematics are often very similar or the same. And they often made several CD players in the same year with different features but the same motherboard. For example I have a Philips CD473 from 1987 which is the same as the CD471 but the 471 had fewer buttons and a simpler display, and internally they are exactly the same except maybe the microcontroller had a different ROM mask or something, or not even that. I'm proud to say that for a short while, I worked at the same location in Hasselt, Belgium where Philips made their late 1980s CD players. Unfortunately by the time I was there (working on satellite receiver firmware), they had already moved CD player production elsewhere. I have great memories of that time. About CD-R's: I concur. I have some CD-R's from the early 1990s when I was working at a company that had one CD-recorder which had been very expensive (remember CD recorders for consumers didn't take off until 1997 or so). The CD-R discs in the early 1990s were difficult to find and were expensive (more expensive than an audio CD), but guess which ones I can still read with no problems. I always bought branded CD-R's by Philips, Verbatim, Mitsubishi, none of that pharmacy-brand crap. But even the branded CD-R's turned to crap in the early 2000s because they couldn't compete with the cheap stuff and had to cut cost and sacrifice quality.

[@12voltvids]

Not being able to find a manual in English gives me an excuse for not repairing something.

[@JacGoudsmit]

@@12voltvids Not repair something? That's crazy talk! ;-)

[@12voltvids]

@@JacGoudsmit Most of this crap can't be fixed. I look for every excuse to not repair most of this stuff. Tv especially. I have become very selective as to what i will work on.

[@ambientblue-eyedmonkey8849]

Fix more all in one hi-fi systems, I love them and there's a big cult fallowing of it in brasil.

[@fghjfghgj]

so in brazil you have listening problems those things are just crap lol

[@ambientblue-eyedmonkey8849]

@@fghjfghgj Lol, you have an understanding problem, those things don'ts sound crap, they come in all kinds of flavours, some more expensive than your standalone separates, that's why it became collectables.

[@paulb4uk]

These phillips also have some decent mechs quite a few mods for them as well ,me i still have a cd710 i bought new i recently unsoldered the op amp fitted a socket and fitted a bur brown op2604 op amp i done the same to a sony i have and treble detail is much better .Some of these phillips players do indeed make quite a bit of money ,my philips cd 710 has the TDA1545 i did look at finding one of the models with the 1541.

[@shoaib7342]

Awesome sir

[@michaeldamico4285]

I own a Sylvania CD 1560 CD Player which I believe uses the same Philips disk mechanism you show in this video. The inside of the chassis you showed in this video is almost identical to the one I have (component layout wise), accept that the PC board at the back right of the player you show in this video isn't there. The issue with my player is that it plays some CDs and not others. Can you give me any things to try to try to get it to read all CDs? I would like to "fully" clean the laser but even after removing the rear screw on the top of the pickup I couldn't get the thin metal lens holder up. I didn't want to force anything so I just put it back together. I have an old Heathkit Oscilloscope I built back in the early 80s, so I may be able to use that if there are any adjustments I have to make. It's probably only 5 MHz bandwith though.

[@saarike]

Nice video and interesting measurements with scope! Can fairly cheap digital scope show this eye pattern at least somehow (200MHz, 1GSa/s)? My humble thanks for vid.

[@12voltvids]

My cheap DSO is useless for this type of work.

[@saarike]

@@12voltvids Ok. Thank you for information.👍

[@downtowngutter3875]

Dude I found a dell laptop at the thrift store it works many treasures at the thrift store

[@12voltvids]

Went there today. Just junk.

[@dimitarlazarov2094]

This machine is as cool as it's voltage regulators working at their hardest...

[@sivajisivaram2013]

Replaced optical lens with new one. Then also flashing continously not reading. Can this be solved by varying eye pattern.

[@zx8401ztv]

And you didn't have to replace any crapacitors on the lazer pcb :-D My old cd103 output was so much louder than any other unit, an attenuator fixed that :-) The deck went silly a long time ago, i might re cap it one day, but my hearing is screwed so meh.

[@johnmay5957]

I just picked up a Sony CDP-68 today. the belt was loose and it would not eject. I replaced it with a rubber band temporarily so i could test it before i buy parts. When i put in a disk i hear the laser pickup make sound several times then nothing. less often it will spin the disk and then stop. I inspected the laser pickup and it appears to be clean. tried to give a gentle wipe with a Q-tip but it did not help. I've watched several of your videos hoping to find a issue just like mine but so far your cd players seem to have better luck. any idea where i should focus my efforts? I found a service manual but i don't own a scope.

[@mauanderuk]

Not a bad machine really linear power supply and separate analogue sections, they have really tired to make this one good considering the budget.

[@2012Reggaeman]

Hi there, I have one of these units. Last week I fell asleep while listening and when I woke there was no longer any sound output. It reads the disk perfectly and counter works as should but no sound at all. Would anyone have any ideas why it has stopped working? Any help greatly appreciated

[@adamwheeldon]

awsome

[@pliedtka]

Sony ES often were very much the same as the regular ones. Years ago I thought that they were really something special until I looked at the service manuals. Often ES model wouldn't be much different or have the same circuitry like normal series but something added. And components like caps, resistors, chips were the same for both, maybe some chips like DACs or Dolby that measured better would go into ES in the 80s, just like the TDA1541 single, double crown specs.

[@12voltvids]

Some of the ES line were much the same. Others like my 40 lb cdp555es were totally different.

[@svenschwingel8632]

Same with DAT decks. Best example: the 57ES and 77ES from Sony. One didn't deserve the ES badge while the other did 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@12voltvids]

@@svenschwingel8632 i have a etc 75es

[@svenschwingel8632]

@@12voltvids the 75ES was for North America. We in Europe had the 55ES which was basically the same deck with a different name. It was really decent for a 3DD design and professionally serviced units in good condition still sell for over 400€ ... imo, the older DATM-13 mechanism was superior to its successor, the DATM-100 family which went into the 57ES/59ES/60ES/670/690/790.

[@darinb.3273]

I'm gonna guess the possibility of some caps are going out of range thus the reason for turning the adjustment all the way to one extreme. Something is causing it for sure LOL.

[@12voltvids]

It wasn't turned to the extreme actually right in the middle of the pot. Since I can't find a service manual i can read, and I am not about to use Google translate this will have to do.

[@darinb.3273]

@@12voltvids My bad I thought I heard you say it was turned all the way in the video, great work as always I definitely learn a lot watching your videos I know many comment about the great work you do, I really wanted to learn in depth electronics but my vision was extremely troublesome for me when I would attempt tracing schematics and like you the repair of electronics fell hard, concerning the toss it and get a new whatever. The technology of photography on cell phones (cell phones didn't exist as far as having built in cameras) I certainly could have done much futher learning otherwise LOL.

[@12voltvids]

@@darinb.3273 No not at all, and in fact I turned it about 1/8 if a turn clockwise then back about 1/8 turn so i am thinking the control wasn't making a good contact.

[@darinb.3273]

@@12voltvids Ohhh man I hear ya those will still oxide just like dirty volume controls, have recently acquired some cassette decks two Sony decks one model is an FX-7 and the other FX-705 both are very nice two head decks the FX-7 is direct drive sounds fantastic with normal tape but with Cro2 position I don't quite get back the signal I put in (normal tape is fine) the other issue is the epoxy is worn down and it causes railroad tracks with 90 minute or greater length tape. I searched for a replacement head but they simply aren't available. I haven't investigated if the original can be refilled with a fresh filler of epoxy or if that would even be possible. The actual metal portion looks fantastic by eye it is a sendust head the only portion I see wear is the epoxy around the metal portions thus the railroad tracks it puts in the longer length cassette tapes as far as sound quality WOW even without Dolby noise reduction turned on of course it wasn't the top of the line three heads of some makers but for its age WOW. I said all that to say I actually cleaned the pots for the levels it didn't really do anything for the levels normal vs type 2. These machines have the actual ferrochrome tape setting of the Sony made ferrochrome tape. I'm sure if I had one to try it ABSOLUTELY would be mind blowing. It sounds fantastic with chrome concerning bass response but I know that was an issue with chrome it doesn't have the bass response of normal type 1. Those machines have a simple two pole double throw relay for playback and recording very 1st time I saw something like that. I actually have 2 FX-705 models the 1st one had a static type sound in the left channel that lasted approximately 30 seconds or so when playing a recording back, I found that the relay had oxidized contacts after cleaning it it worked flawlessly. Anyway thanks for commenting back to me as always I throughly enjoy watching your videos.

[@matejmeza3930]

Greetings, I have one question for the master:) i have a Technics CD player model sl ps 670a. It has a problem with intermittent skipping. It plays normal for lets say 1 hour but then once or twice per song it just randomly skips 20 to 30seconds further into the song. What could be wrong? Great vid as always take care in these hard corona Times! Greetings from Slovenia

[@alexispieltin9379]

Different machine, SOAD60A mechanism with a PCM 56 BB DAC! Similar generic answers: check any aging component like chemicals, but also check anything related to heat sources like bad solders... An aging voltage regulator is also a potential culprit on these machines. If the same fault can be repeated and not occuring randomly, second culprit is a bad disc or dirt on it's surface (fingerprints...), but an aging laser can also randomly loose tracking if the different optic and servos are not properly checked (the eye pattern test on oscilloscope is a mandatory check). One last tip is to check if optical lens is perfectly clean (no smoking!), and to clean and lubricate linear guides of laser head. This specific head is one of these rare and expensive ones!

[@enricoself2256]

That technics CD player uses the (cheaply made) Philips CDM 12.1 traverse unit. Notorious to fail over time, half of Technics CD players using CDM 12.1 on sale have similar problems and if, by chance, it it still working it will fail soon. Need to replace the travers unit; it can be find on ebay for cheap.

[@shoaib7342]

My crt colour TV red intermenatly coming and going...patched up all cold solder joints on crt pcb but nothing happened...can u help me

[@12voltvids]

Could be the tube

[@sterlinglombard]

Sounds like Dixie Dregs in there!

[@electropatagonico]

i have an option to buy cd350 model, with TDA1540, its worth it? about 30 USD

[@12voltvids]

Definately.

[@Raptor50aus]

If my Sony Video 8 home recorder plays BW for about 10 min then turns to color and plays fine for the rest of the day until it is left off overnight is that caps?

[@12voltvids]

Yes more than likely.

[@Raptor50aus]

@@12voltvids thanks :)

[@12voltvids]

@@Raptor50aus In the chroma or possibly power supply.

[@Irilia_neko]

French it's simple, don't worry it's a joke ^^ mais c'est toujours plus simple que l'allemand. I try to learn German, but it's not easy Haha

[@bemi-ton]

hehe - for me it's the other way around :D

[@valtersouzaribeiroribeiro9534]

Show show

[@BoB4jjjjs]

deja vu ?

[@shaunfaesolar]

platinum my ass

[@theannoyedmrfloyd3998]

Also don't put paper sticky labels on DVDs.

[@12voltvids]

That goes without saying but many did thanks to the "CD Stomper" and those labels everyone had.

[@StillCloser]

Quite frankly I don't understand the hype about the CD650 or any other player with the TDA1541 - Sure it was a good DAC when it was released, in the mid 80s, but it doesn't have a chance against more recent chips... Many "audiofools" had the erroneous idea that multibit sounds better than single bit stream, that's actually incorrect - ten years later around 95 almost every player was single bit or PCM...

[@enricoself2256]

That actually has more to do with manufacturing: 1 bit DAC are easier to manufacture as most of the conversion is done in the digital domain by the DSP which converts the PCM signal into a sigma-delta modulated bit stream; the DAC itself is actually a 1 bit (on/off switch) with a low pass filter. Linear DAC as the TDA1541 are far more complex to manufacture as the R/2R ladder used to convert the bits into analogue signal must be very accurate. The TDA1541 had different gradings according to how good it was manufactured; the higher "two crowns" version had better linearity and bit accuracy. 1 bit DAC, on the other hand, requires fast DSP which in the 80's were not cheaply available.

[@12voltvids]

1 bit MASH conversion literally took the EFM signal that was encoded in the disk and directly converter it to the audio stream in the DSP. Legacy players converted the EFM signal back to the original PCM data and then the DAC decoded the data back to analog waveform. 1 bit was cheaper to make, and fewer parts so it won over. The sound was good enough, just like all those class D amplifiers. Many will speak without having ever experienced one of these legacy players. They do have a tonaly different sound that many critical listeners will say is superior.

[@enricoself2256]

Those blue axial caps in the power supply are terrible; you'll be luckly if they still have 40~50% of their rated capacitance. Really poor quality components made by Philips itself. To preseve the life of the CD player they should be swapped out with decent new ones.

[@pliedtka]

I had Sima amp from late 80s where the caps made Philips in NF section suddenly died. I measured them some time ago and while most would keep the capacitance value, the ESR was much higher comparing to other brands, say Nichicon, Elna, Panasonic. Some people, including Nelson Pass, like the Elna Silmic (silk instead of paper) for their audio circuits.

[@12voltvids]

I'll probably do that on my 650 some day, but it works great.

[@enricoself2256]

@@12voltvids I have a CD 204 which is filled up to the brim with such blue Philips capacitors; beside two used as decoupling on the audio output, all the others are mostly on the supplies for the IC's; as long as they hold some capacitance, everything works fine. I'm surprised Philips used blue caps in the power supply of the CD 650: in my CD 204 all caps in the power supply board are high quality Nichicon (i replaced them anyway, but they were all perfectly within spec after more tan 30 years). Vichay still made axial lead capacitor; and they are pretty good.

[@matthewenderby]

Great repair video but Philips plastic fantastic chassis and transport, no thank you no matter what DAC is in there. I'll stick to my Pioneer P-D70 CDP.

[@didyman79]

Are you listening the material of the plate, or the disc? :)