Phonoland

Does anyone know where I can find a replacement cable that connects the CD changer to the amp in an R-94?

Do you have the "attenuator" board for the rear of the CD player ? If so, the cable is just a modified ( on one end) "stereo audio" cable. Ron Rich

Hi Ron,
I have the attenuator board. It looks like I need special plugs for each side of the cable. Do you know of a source for a replacement?

Thinking about it a little more--it's been years since I saw one--I think that there are two RCA male plugs soldered to the board on one end, and the other end has three "pins" sticking out? If so, center is ground, and left and right are the two channels. If you are lucky, look at the "Aux-in-out" plug on the amp, and you should find a "dummy" shoved into the pins. This is the other end, and all you will need to do is add the three ("Amp", now "Tyco" brand) pins (which should be in the "spare parts bag" that was enclosed in the phono). 'Course, you will need to look at the schematic to find out which are the input/output pins. Ron Rich

I was able to find replacement cables at AB Jukebox Repair but now I'm not even sure the problem is the cable. I think the CD player is the issue and considering how old it is I'm not too surprised. It's not worth repairing so I'll most likely ditch it and pick up one of those MP3 conversions.

What problem are you having?

Tracks aren't playing properly. I can sometimes get the first track on a cd to play but the rest of the tracks either won't play or the song skip around playing faster than normal and jump around different parts of the song.

A little history:

In the beginning none of the discs were recognized. I thought maybe I had a faulty cable so I was going to replace that first. I had repaired the cable previously and wasn't sure of my work. When I realized that it couldn't be the cable I opened up the cd player and found the lens had fallen off. I carefully glued it back in place after cleaning it and then cleaned it again for good measure. That enabled the player to recognize the discs but not play them properly. Now, I'm thinking the issue might be lubrication of the bars that the laser assembly slides back and forth on. Admittedly, that is just a guess. I know very little about this type of thing.

Disregard anything that I have posted on this subject, as in your 1st post you said that you were looking for an audio cable. That cable handles only the sound from the CD unit to the amp. It has nothing at all to do with programming the CD player. I would need to assume from your latest post, that you have either internal to the CD problems, or CCC/keyboard problems. Ron Rich

Yeah, there were a few different things going on. I was attempting to troubleshoot by starting with the cable. The cable is fine. The cd player is the problem as far as I can tell. I'm on the correct path now I believe by simply replacing the cd player with an mp3 conversion. Trying to have the cd player repaired would cost much more than it is worth. Besides, vinyl records and mp3s for the stuff I cant find on vinyl seems like the perfect combo.

This is incase readers of this board didn't get Ron's joke. The Pioneer CD changer Rowe used was a home type unit. It was suggested that the disc cartidge be replaced every 6 months. It was a commonly used unit, at the time. The other thing Rowe recommended was to turn the disc in the
case before you put it in the cartridge, to smooth the center hole. Discs would hang-up on the hub in the changer. The first warning sign was that the changer would only play the first song of the selected disc. Then it would only play the first song of the first disc. Then you should have it repaired by a Pioneer service center. I was told by the local Pioneer service center that 'superglue' will put a haze
on the lense, but I still used it. Those CD changer will be over 20 years old, so in this case the up-grade would be the better idea. You might check your software in the CCC. I think the latest eprom
# ends in 15, then it went to R94 V1.1S for the last CD player they bought from Pioneer(which was
a # like 430) Other people made CD changers that would work with the Rowe computer, but I never
saw a list of them. If you hace a 6 disc type changer, open it up and compare the internal PC to the unit you have. If they are identical then swap the internal harness and try it. You also could have a
bad CCC, or have a faulty eprom.