Gary Indiana
Active Member
My latest trip to Goodwill and $4 cash resulted in acquisition of another fine piece of vintage digital audio source: Sony CDP-302 made in 1985 AD.
Here is a great link (not mine) with description of the player and a couple of good pictures.
CDP-302 is a heavy, mostly metal, fine-looking little player. When I bought it, a stuck tray seemed to be the only problem it had.
Googling around I learned that frozen tray is a common problem for this particular model. And so... here's what to do to fix it.
Topless view: very good old school, little plastic, lots of heavy metal. Proper transformer in the power supply.
Old school little known Sony DAC CX20152 giving "pure" hospital grade vintage digital sound. Some loved it, others re-converted to vinyl because of it.
Here she's up side down showing her inner beauty. The laser transport is state-of-the-art electro-mechanical marvel. To quote an expert from the link posted above: Disc loading and track access is faster than greased lightning on a banana peel. And that's exactly right!
When bottom cover removed, these two round laser transport rails should be lubed with light machine oil.
Sewing Machine Oil will work perfectly well.
And here is one of the troublemaking culprits stopping the tray from opening: the yellowish nylon pulley. It was spinning on grease that became glue after a quarter of a century of hard work. This has to be removed and cleaned up with Q-tip and rubbing alcohol.
Metal housing removed. Careful with that tiny E-clip - they might jump like a frog while being removed. I lost mine and had to get replacement for 23 cents at Ace hardware.
This pin was really sticky. Rubbing alcohol cleaned her up. This does not need any lubrication. The two rubber belts were still in great shape. I cleaned them up with alcohol and put them back to service. Be careful not to stain them with grease or oil: it would eat them up fast.
There is more glue that used to be grease many years ago that needs to be removed. The round CD tray rail is best removed completely (one screw) and cleaned thoroughly with alcohol. Clean inside the holes with Q-tip dipped in fine machine oil. Lubricate the round stick with oil. Make sure oil doesn't drip. The flat housing on the other side of the tray need to be removed also (3 screws) and all goo underneath needs to be cleaned up and left clean & dry.
The transport in CDP-302 is amazing. It sounds good, too, but there is room for improvement, and so I plan to tap to the circuit for digital out, and hook up good external DAC to it.
This would be the tapping point. However it may need some tweeking like: buffer, or inverter, or muting between tracks, or combination of them.
This is the pin to tap.
Here is a great link (not mine) with description of the player and a couple of good pictures.
CDP-302 is a heavy, mostly metal, fine-looking little player. When I bought it, a stuck tray seemed to be the only problem it had.
Googling around I learned that frozen tray is a common problem for this particular model. And so... here's what to do to fix it.
Topless view: very good old school, little plastic, lots of heavy metal. Proper transformer in the power supply.
Old school little known Sony DAC CX20152 giving "pure" hospital grade vintage digital sound. Some loved it, others re-converted to vinyl because of it.
Here she's up side down showing her inner beauty. The laser transport is state-of-the-art electro-mechanical marvel. To quote an expert from the link posted above: Disc loading and track access is faster than greased lightning on a banana peel. And that's exactly right!
When bottom cover removed, these two round laser transport rails should be lubed with light machine oil.
Sewing Machine Oil will work perfectly well.
And here is one of the troublemaking culprits stopping the tray from opening: the yellowish nylon pulley. It was spinning on grease that became glue after a quarter of a century of hard work. This has to be removed and cleaned up with Q-tip and rubbing alcohol.
Metal housing removed. Careful with that tiny E-clip - they might jump like a frog while being removed. I lost mine and had to get replacement for 23 cents at Ace hardware.
This pin was really sticky. Rubbing alcohol cleaned her up. This does not need any lubrication. The two rubber belts were still in great shape. I cleaned them up with alcohol and put them back to service. Be careful not to stain them with grease or oil: it would eat them up fast.
There is more glue that used to be grease many years ago that needs to be removed. The round CD tray rail is best removed completely (one screw) and cleaned thoroughly with alcohol. Clean inside the holes with Q-tip dipped in fine machine oil. Lubricate the round stick with oil. Make sure oil doesn't drip. The flat housing on the other side of the tray need to be removed also (3 screws) and all goo underneath needs to be cleaned up and left clean & dry.
The transport in CDP-302 is amazing. It sounds good, too, but there is room for improvement, and so I plan to tap to the circuit for digital out, and hook up good external DAC to it.
This would be the tapping point. However it may need some tweeking like: buffer, or inverter, or muting between tracks, or combination of them.
This is the pin to tap.
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