Portable CD players and CD-RWs

[Jeff7]

My portable CD player, like many others like it, can't read CD-RWs, but has no trouble with CD-Rs. I have heard that this is due to the fact that CD-RWs reflect much less light than standard CDs, and that multi-read CD-ROM drives are able to increase the gain on the laser to read CD-RW media.
Now the question - is there any way to adjust the gain on a portable CD-player so that it could read CD-RWs? I know it would void any warranty on the thing; plus, I don't even know if it is really possible. Any ideas, suggestions? Thanks in advance.

[Roy]

The luminance issue may have some merit, but I suspect the RW format also is involved. I've seen charts that say, simply and uneqivocally, CD-RWs will not play on music CD players. Disc makers now are labeling their products "Music CDRs". I suspect it's HYPE!

[Roy]

I had to look. Here is the sum total of mankind's knowledge about MultiRead. Elsewhere I saw that some music players with multiread specs might be in production.

www2.freemaninc.com/osta/html/mrspec.html (http://www2.freemaninc.com/osta/html/mrspec.html)

Now you know. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif

[This message has been edited by Roy (edited 06-26-2000).]

[Jeff7]

Ok, thanks. For the info. As for those expensive Music CD-Rs - I agree - hype. Standard CD-Rs have worked just fine for me. Ok, one exception - Pacific Digital. Their CD-Rs were junk for me; not one worked - it stopped writing no more than 100MB into the disk, at either 1x or 2x write speed. Got about 7 coasters. The things were very cheap though luckily - rebate deal. Only their RWs worked for me, though they needed to be erased - they didn't work out of the package for whatever reason.

The CD players with multiread capability - yes, I've heard that they are being made. Thing is, I think they are rather expensive compared to your typical portable CD player, and I figured I'd see if there was any way to modify an existing player. Thing is, I would really want a portable MP3 player; trouble is, I don't happen to have a few hundred dollars laying around for one that has a decent amount of memory in it. And thanks for that link on multi-read tech.

[Warthog]

I was at Wal-mart one time and saw an Aiwa mini system that said CD-RW on it.

Warthog