After years of searching for one at a good price, I finally picked up a working LD player: a Proscan PSLD-41 (clones of the RCA LDR-600 and Pioneer CLD-2090). However, two things were wrong with it: The front door wouldn't close up on 'Stop' (obviously very minor), and the side turner was non-functioning (quite a bit less minor). It unleashes the dreaded clicking of gears not connecting properly, a horrible "CKCKCKCKCK" that wouldn't let me turn the machine off. To see if there were any obstructions, I opened it up and looked around. I read somewhere that if you hold down the 'Side B' button, you can see if it's working properly (not sure where I found this), so I did that and pushed on the turn mechanism and it made a complete rotation onto Side B and was reading just fine. On eject, I had to push it again a little toward the back of the machine to have it clamp into the turning mechanism. Then I pushed again to have it turn back around to its proper place.

I read that this machine is an Alpha turn model, but I'm not sure. What is happening here, and is it something I can fix?

Probably just a stretched loading belt issue.

We were discussing it here on how to replace....

Does it get much better than a CLD-D702?

The turn mechanism can usually be resolved by adding a little grease to the guide rail. The other option is from the side you’ll see a tab connected to the track it is bouncing up and down as the pickup is trying to go onto side B. Find a way to install a spring to the tab that has just enough up tension so the pickup gear grabs the track a little better.

This looked like a really easy fix, especially since I have a bunch of orphaned belts waiting for a project. I found one that was was smaller than the one already in there, but when I replaced it, no change. Both were square belts, so I don't know.

This thing looks (and feels) plenty greased, but I'm wondering about that latter option. Where is this tab, exactly?

Almost forgot about this other odd issue.....

There might be some sticky residue on the copper colored ribbon cable that connects to the laser pick-up that could be interfering w/ its movement. I had this problem w/ my 701 years ago and the clacking noise was one of the symptoms along w/ no auto reverse and difficulty playing the end of a disc on Side 1.

The sticky residue was from this piece of plastic that Pioneer put on the ribbon cable to act as a sort of tensioner to keep the cable tight as it expanded and retracted w/ the pick ups movement. I found that tensioner piece had also fallen off contributing to the issues.

The fix is to remove this piece completely and clean off the sticky residue w/ goo gone and a Q-Tip.

Sorry for the delay, but I got around to it and opened it up. I think I found the wire you're talking about, but I couldn't find this residue anywhere on it. I took a picture to show what the tensioner looks like here.

One more question. Did your player have an issue with digital sound? I recently got the remote to use the optical digital out, and mine doesn't seem to be working. It switches fine without the disc, but once the disc is playing, you're stuck with analog. Is this connected to anything going on here, or is this an entirely different problem?

That is the cable I am referring to. Best way to see if it has the residue problem or even just see if something else is impeding movement is to play a disc w/ the cover open and observe what happens to the cable as the clacking starts. Like I said before, I had a loose piece of flat plastic along with the residue that caused my issue.




Are you sure you are playing a disc with “digital” sound? Some discs are “analog” only and in that case would push audio only from the L/R outputs. If you play a CD and get audio from the optical out, then you know it works.

There are two hulking chunks of black plastic blocking my view of the cable, so I took a leap of faith and decided to take the entire spring mechanism out, and all of a sudden it started to work perfectly. It kept flipping perfectly and worked great. No idea, but I'll keep the piece aside, but I'll enjoy it for now. Guess it's solved?



I know I'm using digital discs; I only have 1 analog only disc. As for the CDs, they only seem to work sometimes. One minute digital out sounds great with them. Another, and they won't even play: just spin up and down.

Not sure what spring mechanism you are referring too but if the unit appears to be playing fine now then I wouldn't worry about it for now. Just make sure to keep the pieces and hopefully you photographed their location prior to removing them.





I guess I forgot to answer this question. Nope.. my player plays digital sound fine.





Not quite sure about this issue but I'm sure Kurtis would know the answer. If I was to guess, maybe the centering is off on the player especially when playing CD's. Trying to find a pic of the centering control on an Alpha Turn unit but looks like I may have to pop my player open to find it. If I get a chance to do it later, I'll post a pic.

This sounds similar to an issue with CDs I was having, which did indeed turn out to be a centering issue.

Intermittent CD is either spindle motor centering (most common issue) or it can be the laser starting to age.

How do I fix this centering issue, or at least find out if this is the issue? Is there something in the manual, because I don't have access to manuals for any of the different varieties.

I've been racking my brain all day on this and even took my 43 apart to see where the adjustment might be. After giving up, I decided to look up a different model (Pioneer Elite, CLD-97) and found that its centering adjustment is right under the chassis....



Not sure if this would be the same on the 2090 chassis (I should have took a pic of my unit's underside before putting it back on my shelf but I never assumed the adjustment could be on the bottom ) but I guess you can look for yourself.

If it is indeed below the player, the service manual appears indicate that you would need to put the player on some kind of lift (like when a car gets worked on from below) because the adjustment needs to be made w/ the player being level.

Maybe Kurtis can concur if this sounds right?

There are several holes on the bottom, but none of them seem to be above a screw (which I assume would be what to look for). Looked around more inside and I can't find any labels for this centering adjustment. It has that weird honeycomb pattern underneath, if that helps any.