Thread: Steely Dan Gaucho disc won't play

Posts: 9

Post by Rob March 11, 2005 (1 of 9)
Has anyone out there had a problem with your sacd not working? y Gaucho disc plays fine the first 3 songs but starts to cut out on the 4th song and won't play any of the rest. I don't have any other discs that do this so it is not a hardware issue.
It sucks because I bought it online and the cost of shipping 2 ways is within a few dollars of the cost of the disc. There are no surface imperfections either
Rob

Post by onebit March 11, 2005 (2 of 9)
So far I've had 4 discs that I would consider bona fide defectives (out of about maybe 90) - two were Harmonia Mundi (curiously both Vivaldi!), which would get to a certain point and start skipping (they did this on two separate Denon machines, at the same place, only in multi-channel). When replacements were ordered, problem was solved. Discs were visually scratch free.

One of the others was the Rachmaninov Mercury Living Presence SACD (see thread /showthread/3457/3457/y#3457 in this forum), which was replaced twice to no avail. That one was strange, and seemed to affect Denon machines in particular.

The other is an Alison Krauss double live SACD which skips merrily along about half way through disc 2 in Multi-Channel. It looks to have an optical defect in it beneath the surface, but who knows. Too late to return that one.

I think you will run into a few now and again as you start to build your collection. I definitely think that Denon's machines are finicky compared to others, for some reason.

Post by Rob March 11, 2005 (3 of 9)
onebit said:

So far I've had 4 discs that I would consider bona fide defectives (out of about maybe 90) - two were Harmonia Mundi (curiously both Vivaldi!), which would get to a certain point and start skipping (they did this on two separate Denon machines, at the same place, only in multi-channel). When replacements were ordered, problem was solved. Discs were visually scratch free.

One of the others was the Rachmaninov Mercury Living Presence SACD (see thread /showthread/3457/3457/y#3457 in this forum), which was replaced twice to no avail. That one was strange, and seemed to affect Denon machines in particular.

The other is an Alison Krauss double live SACD which skips merrily along about half way through disc 2 in Multi-Channel. It looks to have an optical defect in it beneath the surface, but who knows. Too late to return that one.

I think you will run into a few now and again as you start to build your collection. I definitely think that Denon's machines are finicky compared to others, for some reason.

I do have a Denon 2900 !!

Post by mariano March 14, 2005 (4 of 9)
Rob said:

Has anyone out there had a problem with your sacd not working? y Gaucho disc plays fine the first 3 songs but starts to cut out on the 4th song and won't play any of the rest. I don't have any other discs that do this so it is not a hardware issue.
It sucks because I bought it online and the cost of shipping 2 ways is within a few dollars of the cost of the disc. There are no surface imperfections either
Rob

Yes, only with Soul Train by John Coltrane. My sony xa777es missed the track many times for few seconds. I got the disc back to the shop but the replacement was worse as my player was blocked by this disc. So I got back also the replacement but I didn't take a further replacement. The redbook layer was good but sonically inferior to sacd layer. I have about 50 sacd but never had problems.
Mariano

Post by malewis May 21, 2005 (5 of 9)
I have a Denon 2900 and am having problems with the MCh layer on Alison Krauss's "New Favorite". The disc would stutter and skip around track 3 and at one point it somehow shutdown my AVR? I've received a replacement and it's skipping in a different place - track 9 onwards?

The stereo layer seems Ok so maybe I'll keep it as a stereo only disc or perhaps I'll just send it back and get a store credit?

Cheers

Martin

Post by goalie81 May 25, 2005 (6 of 9)
malewis said:

I have a Denon 2900 and am having problems with the MCh layer on Alison Krauss's "New Favorite". The disc would stutter and skip around track 3 and at one point it somehow shutdown my AVR? I've received a replacement and it's skipping in a different place - track 9 onwards?

The stereo layer seems Ok so maybe I'll keep it as a stereo only disc or perhaps I'll just send it back and get a store credit?

Cheers

Martin

This is the *exact* problem I had with several SACDs too. I also have a Denon player, the 5900. It would play everything I tossed into it except the multichannel SACD layer of non-Sony brand SACD discs. I had a skipping issue with all of the following SACDs in multi mode: all six Elton John releases, Roxy Music's Avalon, Nine Inch Nails' Downward Spiral, Gaucho, The Who's Tommy, and a few more I'm sure I'm forgettting. I have another Sony SACD player and the discs played fine in that player. I also tried repurchasing some of the discs, but they ended up skipping in different places.

I contacted Denon in September, 2004 noting the issue. They asked me if I could try the discs in another Denon player. As my dealer didn't have a 5900 on the floor, I tried their 2900. The three discs I took with me, Tommy, Gaucho and Elton's GYBR, all played fine.

After going back and forth with Denon via email, they sent copies of the discs they purchased that I was having problems with to their labs in Japan. They initially tried sending me two firmware updates, but that didn't work. I was eventually instructed to send my 5900 to Denon's facility in NJ for a combo firmware/drive transport assembly. When I got the unit back in April, my 5900 has played everything perfectly.

So the problem may not affect all 2900 or 5900 units, but in my case firmware wouldn't do it alone. It's not the discs. Contact Denon to arrange a fix. Their website has contact details for their NJ facility. I had about a two week turnaround between mailing and getting it back.

Good luck!

Post by Maurice June 10, 2006 (7 of 9)
Rob said:

Has anyone out there had a problem with your sacd not working? y Gaucho disc plays fine the first 3 songs but starts to cut out on the 4th song and won't play any of the rest. I don't have any other discs that do this so it is not a hardware issue.
It sucks because I bought it online and the cost of shipping 2 ways is within a few dollars of the cost of the disc. There are no surface imperfections either
Rob

This is kind of late but I am having the same issue today that you described. The Guacho SACD played fine when I purchased it over 1.5 years ago; however, today it started having issues at track 4 and could never complete any song after track 4. I've played it last than five times over the past year and 1.5 and this is the first time that I have seen this type of failure. I cleaned the laser and the problem repeated. I then put in anoother SACD - Concord Jazz SACD Sampler and it played beautifully. i wonder if the Gaucho disk as well as others with similar experience had some type of material failure (chemically) which occurs over time. Thoughts?

Post by mike111ryan May 29, 2007 (8 of 9)
Just received Gaucho from Amazon. Refuses to play in my Yamaha DVD-S1500.
Huge disappointment.

Post by mcchuk May 29, 2007 (9 of 9)
mike111ryan said:

Just received Gaucho from Amazon. Refuses to play in my Yamaha DVD-S1500.
Huge disappointment.

I got rid of my Yamaha S1500 for the same reason. Bought a Cambridge DVD 87 and it plays all my SACD's well. It's a bargain of a universal player. Had some problems with the S1500 with other SACD's as well. The sound quality out of the DVD-87 is slightly better to. I actually had the software updated by Yamaha to fix this problem in the S1500 but it did not correct it.

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