CED Performance-is it Supposed to Be This Bad?

[leadlike]

Analogdigit, if your brother's player was a Sears model, I concur-they are terrible players. I picked up one of these at a Value Village and it needed a ton of work to get going. Once it did, the sound and picture were terrible. These were rebadged Hitachis, which require a very special needle that was tough to find even then. The J/K series RCAs are very dependable, the only part that goes bad being the tiny belt that drives the loading system.

These discs are a bit more resiliant than one would think-I had a copy of Rust Never Sleeps for years, and who knows how many times I pulled it out of the caddy and got my grubby hands on it. I even put it on my turntable to see if it would play! After all that, it doesn't skip any more than any of the other titles I have had.

It should be noted that you should always inspect your discs before playing them. I've found some that were covered in tiny handprints (Children's titles) and others covered in mildew. Most importantly, I have found quite a few that had cracked discs! I'm sure running a cracked title through your player would tear that needle up pretty quickly!

I'm curious-were there any titles that were only ever released on CED? I collect 8-tracks, and part of the fun is that so much of that material was specific to that format, or additional material was added to an album to meet the running time restrictions of the tape.