Take care of this stuff, and it lasts forever. My 32 year old DENON DCD-900 is still going strong. But I did have to replace the belt that opens and closes the tray. I replaced the belt with a belt that was from an old dead cassette player that was sitting in my junk pile. About 3 years ago, it started skipping and could not even reach track 20 or more. But it just needed a couple of drops of electric shaver oil on the motor gear mechanism that moves the LED position, to get it working perfectly again.

The Denon DCD 920 is a hig end CD player who has also digital outputs. I bought the thing in 1991. It was working until a few weeks ago. But I got a new laser unit by ebay and will built it in. The motor for the volume is for the use of a remote. Thank you for the video.

I have this player in my guitar workshop. The tray needs a little encouraging to do it's job, but for the rest an amazing unit now 31 years old! I have it hooked up to my TL Audio i-TUBE RED-i and a pair of vintage Rand Arena speakers. Total bliss listening to electric guitar dominant music from my favourite era, 60's and 70's. Roy Buchanan, early ZZ Top etc... It cranks all day without any fuss.

I just bought a Denon CD changer from 1996 for $10.00 and it's dirty and scratched on the top but it works like new, I knew it would since its a DENON and i bet it will sound better than my sony CD changer. At first it locked up because I moved it and it had an old Steely Dan CD inside I shook it the CD shot out and it works fine so I bought it. plus I have never owned a DENON so I decided why not just try it.

hey bill the funniest thing happened today. I came across a technics SL-p118 cd player dated march of 87 on the "broken items" shelf at a pawn shop. i picked it up for 4 dollars. When i brought it home, it was working perfectly and played CD-R perfectly. What was really cool about it though was it had a "High Speed Linear Tracking System" which as far as i could tell uses some sort of solenoid rather then a motor and gears, to move the laser assembly, I was amazed at how fast it gave me the

Cheers dude, my DCD-825 wasn't working, got the lid off, cleaned the laser lens and shook it about a bit and it was good as new! Thanks for the advice.

I happened to find a Denon DCD-1300 CD player sitting on the shelf in the thrift store today. I believe it was dated September 1986 on the back. I passed on it because it didn't come with the remote, and my 1985 Sony CD player does a fine job, but it certainly looked like a high quality piece of equipment.

The Denon-920 is a very nice CD player. I bought mine new AUD$700 in 1988 and still use to this day.

You say this CD player was made in 1989, in that case see if you can find a copy of The Stone Roses first album, that came out in 1989, I have it, I love it. That's what you call a CD player, look at the size of that circuit board, it's massive. I have a Teac PD-P1 here somewhere, I've seen on the RadioShack Catalogues website they have a Realistic branded version from 1987.

Buicks are capable of magical things!! That motor driven volume control is really cool, never seen anything like it before. But definitely a score, that thing will out do any of the newer ones. And I dont even think my dads over priced Aiwa has any of the output except the regular ones.

That is actually a very nice CD player. I love the huge dac section on this thing!

I have a Hitatchi CD player from 1983 with that style of volume control, however on it intead of having a knob on the front panel it has an up and down button which runs the motor attached to the volume potentiometer. Unfortunatly the player doesn't work, the disk spins up but no information is read from the disk, also the motor which actuates the vertical loading cd tray seems to be shot.

My older Sony 300 disc CD Changer has an Optical output. Same goes for my Sony 5 DVD changer. Both are hooked of via Optical cable into my JVC RX-8000V driving a pair of Cerwin Vega D-7's on channel 1 and a pair of "Audio Spectrum III"(according to the back of them) on channel 2. Sounds fantastic. My father has an old Sony single disc player that has a screen just like that, with the graphic for the tracks. No optical out though.

@uxwbill Supposedly "Steely Dan's Greatest Hits 1972-1978" is 80:18 on CD. Technically a CD that long should not have the official "Compact Disc Digital Audio" logo on it, because although it is possible to go over 80 minutes, it is not Red Book compliant, and some CD players will have trouble playing it.

I also "repaired" a lot of CD/DVD players with a car ^^ I think it's because it moves dust around between the lenses that otherwise are unreachable. On some players (those who have a well build lens) I just make it take an alcohol bath. And it's working pretty well ! But some lenses are so cheap that they use a little piece of paper as the only protection to the little mirror used to redirect the laser. This kind usually don't like this type of treatment...

rock solid machines! before, mine wouldn't even play a cd. After cleaning the laser and oiling the sled it worked like new....its a shame i had to put it back in storage!

I also usually do my repairs on the kitchen table only because it's the best lit room in the house :P

I've got myself a little DCD-520.. not a bad toy.. I like it for the "dirty" DAC in it.. chops the digital high nastiness off of CD's...

@uxwbill i have an old(possibly early or mid 60s) General Electric AM only clock radio that is a vac tube unit but has a PCB in it. My other vac tube console is a PCB unit as well, but it's not one of the better quality or higher wattage ones, yet it has Hitachi tubes in it.

Thanks for a really entertaining and useful video. I have a couple of old part-functioning players and you have now given me the confidence to delve inside them!

I really enjoy your videos. There is a Y cable made by Hosa, model number YMR-197 that will convert your CD player RCA left and right line output to stereo mini. You can plug in some stereo headphones to listen to your CD player without having to hook up an amplifier and speakers. Just a quick and dirty way of seeing if you're getting any audio output. Have you ever repaired a 6 CD disc magazine changer? I just got a JVC XL-M417 with changer issues. It has a single drawer too. Thanks, Tom

@uxwbill You should try to hunt down a receiver with an optical or coaxial input. The sound quality is superb over analog. I find the optical sounds better than the co-ax, but that could just be my receiver there. I even have an older(early 90s) Sony Mobile ES 10 disc CD changer in one car that has an optical output, but the head unit doesn't have an optical input.

Denon are worth alot of money i have a pair of their speakers and i have never heard sound like they put out....probably top's Bose

The deck you have has variable outputs the two outputs to the right of the main outs. This is why the volume has a motor you need the remote for hands free volume adjustment. variable outputs allow you to bypass the amps volume control. Set the amps volume to your own listening level and just use the volume off the deck. I never figured out what the purpose for this function was, and note you don't see this option on many decks after the 80's. My Rotel 990 player played flawlessly for the last three years. Now when you turn the power button on the tray automatically comes out and will not go back in. If you give it a little push you can feel the tray motor kick in. you have to turn the power off to put the tray back in. What could be the issue?

Great video! I really like these kitchen table repair videos. Keep up the good work. Just one question out of curiosity; How come you chose your kitchen table as your standard workbench and not the living room table, the garage, or some other place in the house? :)

@edison700 tracking info and skip from the last song to the first song. It was about 5-7 seconds faster then a fairly new and nice cd player i have. Maybe I'll post a video response of it sometime

@uxwbill The only piece of audio equipment i have that is 100% point to point wiring is the Tube amp in my 50s Magnavox. When i saw that I was astounded at the amount of different wires, both gauge and color, that was under that chassis. I suppose it goes for all the "antique" stuff as PCB's weren't around until i believe the early 60s correct?

nice cd player ya got there and ahhh jimmy buffet i like him cause his last name is like the all you can eat buffet and boy do i ever love an all you can eat buffet so hes alright with me lol

sweet cd player. and finally, no caps need changing

That's an amazing CD player for the late 80's. That Realistic player is one of the units I mentioned before we had that got trashed. Also, is that Royal Crown Cola on the table? I haven't seen that here on the East Coast since I was a kid. Though, I recently spotted a bottle of Yello Mello at a local Subway which is also a drink not common here anymore. I miss Pepsi Kona... ;(

how old is this cd player? Denon is another company i have not heard of lol

@uxwbill well all i can say is they made good shit back then. its to bad the qualiy in todays electronics are not as good. high tech none the less, but not as long lasting

Nice old Cd player you've got there. I recendly got a dcd 1420... it is very similar and has s few extras like a shielded frontpanel, because it was a higer end model. But i noticed one assumtion you made about the D/A converter having Bit depht of only 16 bit. Well that is not actually true in this Case... The Burr Brown converters had 16 Bit from the factory, but where modyfied by Denon to the stated 20 bit. Im not shure how they've done it, but it was not just a wrong advertisement.

What a neat machine! I've always wanted a dedicated CD player with Toslink. I guess I could just play a CD in a DVD player w/ Toslink, but most DVD players aren't that good with CDDA. Is that little processor "card" removable?

@simplicityford Yes it didnt come with a remote

@uxwbill That stuff works good but it's pricey, you should consider a brand called Safe Clean. It's sold at Walmart and for about $5 bucks you get a great sized 12oz can and it works just as good as the Radioshack and Best Buy products selling for more. I use it to clean everything from my Xbox 360 to my Alu iMac and iPhone and it works perfectly. 

@uxwbill Hey Bill, I sent you the link to the company. Also, try looking around the blank cd/DVD area of your local Walmart that's where it would be.

Did it come with a remote? I'm assuming it originally came with one due to the motor being on the volume control.

Sorry, it's actually called Clean Safe.

ok denon is tough i own a denon 5 cd changer and i threw it out my door once and with a little love (and air in a can) it works again

You Should Turn K.T.E.R Into a YT Show

Thats DENON :) Nice machine ..

@uxwbill i'd love to use it daily if i could....problem is it belongs to my dad and he would flip if he knew i even got it out. its a shame, that thing deserves to be used, it's in mint condition! i'd use it over my RCA 5 cd changer i have, i just love the cool retroness to it

@uxwbill Wow That Was A Quick Response! It Only Took Like 8 Minutes!

And I really wish you had a tri-pod. :0

hey uxwbill. I'm going to investigate into a sharp all in one unit. the CD player reads the track numbers, buy does not play, it stops on 000, so not sure what the problem is. maybe weak motor of the laser assembly? I would think if it reads the table of contents the laser should be ok? your input would be appreciated :)

@uxwbill I did not no they had mother boards :) i fixed a emachines I just bought windows7 with the computer :)

Hey uxwbill, I just got a Denon myself off of ebay because the seller said the door wouldn't open. Naturally, a belt problem, and I am waiting on the belt, but this belt is still just functional enough to let me try out a CD. The model of mine is DCD-810, and when I tried (3 different CDs, no marks at all on them) I had the cover off and saw the disk start and stop when it was looking for the index. It stopped after a few tries and came up with zeros across the display. How can I get the player to start reading discs again?

my playstation 2 did exactly the same thing, it wouldn't read any DVD's then it got knocked around a little while i was trying to see what was wrong with it. then it suddenly worked!

@uxwbill Well, I see you edited out taking apart the CD Player (My guess is because u needed 2 hands) with 2 hands we could see the entire process :)

What would the price have been new?

CD's are like last millenium! :-)

how did you clean the laser?

Whats the point in fixing this device when you can use a dvd player or computer to play cds.

Dear uxwbill, my Magnavox CDB 650 will stop if I index up too many tracks of a CD. It does it most of the time. Also, letting it play the CD through, it will also stop after 6, or 7 or 8 songs (tracks) were played. It whines as it plays, and I don't remember it did that when new. Sometimes, it will play all the way through a CD, but very infrequently. (It won't really play the end 4, or 5, or 6 songs/tracks). I've had it since new, and was not subject to dirt/smoke environment. I have modified it's output stage, mainly changing the coupling capacitors for higher end/better than plain electrolytic types. (The said mod was done many years ago, and it worked fine then). ¿Any suggestions, kindly?

denon is still around crazypainter1000 google it they make some expesive stuff!

@uxwbill Atleast 1 video using it pl0x :)

@uxwbill sryy

@wizard101emily now now,. no need to swear at people if they dont want to sub you. If you want more subscribers, make videos that a broader spectrum of people like.

@wizard101emily why? I only sub to people that make good videos that interest me. yours don't so, tough luck.