I can't say that Alpine is "the best" ('cause I own and like some of the
Sony MobileES gear), but the problems you're now experiencing have
absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the Alpine, and EVERYTHING
to do with the experience of the tech that worked on your unit.
The tech had to have opened the unit to put his test leads into the
system, and somewhere in there the laser transport is now out of
alignment.
The player's software is trying to track the bitstream on the CD
surface, and THINKS it needs to move the transport a preset amount to do
so, except when things are out of alignment the tracking won't move the
same distance/direction. Hence, the player reads and re-reads the
tracks until it thinks it gets something useful, and while it does that
you're hearing the skipping. The "digital noise" might be the D/A
converter going into histerysis due to a surrounding capacitor or
resistor that gone marginal on it's specs. (which is likely what the
tech would have been looking for)
Contact Alpine's Customer Support and get it repaired by them. I also
have the 783x family player for a little over 2 years, and I've had no
problems with mine, so it's not a universal "Alpine sucks" problem.
Kurt
"Mike D." wrote:
>
> I haven't owned a clarion, but I think my next unit will be Clarion or
> Eclipse. I have an Alpine now. It's my second Alpine and I'm really
> disappointed. My first Alpine bit the dust after a year and a half of use
> (CD laser quit), and now my new one (7832) is only 2 years old and is
> acting up. I had it in the shop (circuit city) because it just wouldn't
> play CD's. The problem was intermitten.. all I would get was digital
> distortion. So, circuit city has it for 2 weeks, says they can't find the
> problem, and give it back. Now, it skips like hell, some CD's won't even
> play cuz' all they do is skip, and it just don't sound as good as it used
> to. I'm VERY picky as to my audio quality because I am an Audio Engineer,
> and listen to most of my music on $15k studio monitors. Man, I thought
> Alpine was he best... guess not =(
>
> -mike d.
>
> miggitymike@juno.com
> 88 6er with Slush-o-matic and 3.55 one-legged rear,
> lowered, modded, and painted =)
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