I've been looking for a large Boom Box for several weeks now that operates on batteries. I finally found an old Sony Boom Box at a local Pawn Shop. They demonstrated it for me with a CD before I bought it, but when I got home I tried playing one of my burned CDs and it says "no disc" when I try to play it. When I put in a "store bought" one it plays fine. The burned ones play fine in my car and other CD players. Has anyone encountered a problem like this - if so are there any solutions? Is the type of CD's I'm burning, the settings or program I'm using to burn the CD's (Window Media Player) or do older CD players descriminate from burned CDs vs. produced ones??
True dat. I had an old Sony that wouldn't play any CD-Rs. Strangely enough, it WOULD play an audio CD burned to a CD-RW, but not a CD-R. Strange...
I bought a new SONY portable radio/CD/cassette at Radio Shack last year for $70. It has a remote and plays burned and store-bought CDs. It's a very sturdy, good sounding boombox. Link
Ahhh, yes! You did reveal my true age as I am a product of the 70-80's, but all I'm really looking for is a loud CD player that we can play at tailgating parties without having to hook up to the generator. Unfortunately, all I can find now are really small boom boxes or big systems that require a plug.
just found this thread... are you burning mp3's or as cd audio? The redbook standard doesn't support mp3's and will not play in some older cd players as a result. Also, some older cd players are real picky when it comes to making sure all subcodes follow the redbook specification exactly. I had a cd player in an old van that displayed the same behavior as your cd player and this was with disks that were burned to exact redbook standard - so there is some cases where older cd players simply will not play a burned disk at all (although I could sometimes get it to work depending on the media). Each version of cd's is made with different formula of die and do not have the same attributes in regards to error rate. In addition not all cd burners themselves burn cd's with the same error rate (some less errors than others and some more prone to critical errors). To further complicate matters sometimes it will be a combination of formula and burner that work better. What is most likely happening in your case (as long as you are burning cd audio and not mp3's to the disk) is that the error correction on the cd player simply cannot handle the errors that are written to disk as a result of your burner and the media. You can try media with different formulas (they will be different colors on the burn side) or you can try a different burner and see if you can get the error rate down to a point where the older error correction can compensate. The easiest way to test this would be to use a few of your friend's burners to see if you can get the cd player to play any of those burned disks. The higher end Plextors are generally considered to be the burners with the least errors written to disk and come with a utility that will allow you to see exactly how many errors are on a burned disk and whether they are critical or not.
I remember right around 1997-1998 did it become common place for cd players to universally play burned cd's. So you might want to look at the back of the cd player for the serial information on it.
a couple of other tidbits... the redbook standard allows for a maximum playing time of 78 minutes (total time). it is fairly difficult to find disks these days that are 78 minutes or less - but can make a big difference in allowing older cd players that don't bend the rules to play burned disks. If you are using disks that have a maximum burnable time over this limit that could very well be part of the problem. Also, I'm not sure if windows media records ISRC - but I'm not positive that would cause any problems. It might though, and would be worth investigating alternative burning programs to make sure your disks conform to redbook. Cd Architect is a fairly inexpensive program that I know burns disks to true redbook standard. Brands that I personally know are low in error rate in order of my personal preference: Tayo Uden, Verbatim Data Life Plus Advanced Metal Azo , Verbatim Data Life Plus , HHB This all depends on the burner though. And I can't stress enough that if you are using 80 minute cd's (or greater) that you will have issues with some replication plants and some older cd players as that breaks the standard which those machines are designed to follow. Best of luck, Brock
