FISHER PCD-100 Studio Standard

serge1996

After some bidding I got myself a beautiful 50 Anniversary Studio Standard in "voll funktionsfähig" condition!!

Fisher-PCD-100

Received it today, what a shame!!! Skips so badly that it cannot play any single CD! Just to be on the safe side, I also bought its Service Manual (gonna scan it and post here today) and only then realized that it is not a copy of Sony D-15 or D-250 but a Toshiba clone! ... According to Kaosun table it is a copy of P9 or P20. I have real bad success with Toshibas, even with Kaosun's help it was 0-1.  Now 0-2.
Following The Manual on how to adjust TO/TB just made things worse, so I returned all the pots into their original position, at least in its "uncalibrated" state it reads CD.
Already initiated return/refund thru eBay, but if there are any tips on what to check before sending it back, I will gladly play with it a bit more. Laser is strong, eyepattern is good, on my test CD it plays tracks 1-5 and 8-10, cannot lock onto tracks 6 and 7

serge1996

While waiting for the seller response I took some photos of this player. It looks "expensive", borderlines"bad taste" but IMHO still stays on the decent site of the border:

Noticing that its bottom plate got some rust, its previous owner sprayed it with WD-40

Must be one of those folks who clean CD laserlens with BluTack
All those pieces of sticky tape became gooey and just fell off leaving oily glue behind...

Myguess here we see an exact copy of some Toshiba PCDP

OldSkool way of dealing with flexboards:

a few real tight places for old electrolytics should anyone decide to recap one of these:

serge1996

bump ;-(

kaosun

I didn't see any caps' leaking but better checking them. Spindle motor and mechanical parts should be lubricated, also check RF pattern. You have oscilloscope, re-calibrate the laser and TB/FB. It should work.

serge1996

RF is good and strong:

but tracking is totally off and when adjusted to the specs, laser fails to lock onto CD.
Yesterday, after a few beers ;-) I got an idea what happened, will check it tonight.

serge1996

My insight was correct, turntable platter WAS reset by a previous owner at incorrect height. Even motor mounting screws had been reset, the locking paint broken.


I did not want to unglue and then to reattach the plate, so I pulled 0.4mm shim from under the platter:


Now the platter is set correctly:


and tracking balance can be set.

Unfortunately, the problem was not solved (Toshiba is winning again!)
On startup it behaves, reads TOC instantly and without any problems. However, it was still either skipping, or having troubles finding Next Track, sometimes it would take 15-20 sec for the laser to slide up and down the rails to lock, then it would skip for the first few sec of play.
I desoldered flex boards

reset once again the spindle and cleaned the lens


Still the same troubles with finding the track, more often then not when I press Play sled motor just keeps pushing laser against the spindle motor... until I turn it Off.
I will double-check electrolytics around Servo, because it is definitely doing something it should not be doing.

serge1996

Studio Standard is fixed!
My best explanation is that it could not stand my swearing and cursing no more. My second-best explanation is that I used wrong CD to calibrate Tracking Balance. Only Kaosun may know the Real explanation for this weirdness. Once I used different CD for tracking calibration (Dead Can Dance "Aion", 4AD 9 45575-2) instead of my standard, dispensable CD of Wagner's "Magic Fire Music" (Laserlight 15 612) everything got back to normal.
Its the first time I used an advice from one of the tweakers and painted around the lens with flat black enamel. I like the final look, maybe I should start doing this for my other Discmans...


Fisher must have requested a fancy look even on the inside, Toshiba put a mirror plate above the CD. Not the best idea, but considering 14-bit DAC, sound quality was not their first priority.


Rusted bottom plate got sanded and repainted, I used super-strong enamel with ceramic.



This Discman is totally unique, another Jewel of my collection!

kaosun

Just noticed your post. Sorry for that but this one sounds so so. What do you think?
I like its shape, for sound, unless you use a excellent earphone.

serge1996

Kaosun, I totally agree, Sound quality was Not their prime concern with this model. Could it be some kind of Toshiba's "conspiracy": since this player branded as Fisher they made it sound inferior to the "real" Toshiba Discmans? Or maybe it is just a limitation of 14-but DAC. I do not have any working Toshibas in my collection.
Must say that for an average CD produced nowadays it does not matter. They are so over-compressed that sound  the same through Fisher or Denon.

hucsacsu34

Fisher PCD-100