The renovation poltergeist continues to cause problems with my equipment...

Has anyone had issues using a bluray player as a CD transport? The thing has no problems with movies, even the odd disc with a scratch. But I've tried a handful of CDs, and the sound cuts in and out constantly. It's definitely an issue with the way the player is reading the discs; both the analog and digital outputs show the problem.

Is this normal?

What player are you using? My Panasonic BD55 has been a stud as a CD transport, Blu-ray multi-channel analog, DVD via a "digital" connection.

Something or other by Samsung, a couple of years old (whenever the big-box stores were giving away The Dark Knight with it). It isn't a big deal...95% of what we use the system for is movies or TV. Just using it for music during cleanup from the renos.

I'll check it against some pristine CDs and see if it's still doing it. If it is, time to drag the iPod out of hiding (from the kids, who discovered how to look up naughty videos on YouTube).

Frank, no it isn't normal. Nearly all Blu-ray players have lasers which operate at wavelengths of 780nm(CDs),650nm(DVD/DVD-A/SACD)and 405nm(Blu-ray). These are the optimal wavelengths for reading those types of discs(contrary to the nonsense we sometimes read about "dedicated" players), and when in good working condition your Blu-ray player should read CDs(unless they're badly damaged)flawlessly.

The problem with your player wouldn't likely be a dirty lens, since the lens for Blu-ray would almost certainly be equally dirty. The laser diode for CD or its wiring may be failing, but whatever the problem would be, repair wouldn't likely be economically practical.

Get the latest firmware update if there is one available before replacing it.

Thanks for the insight. I'm certainly not looking eager to get a dedicated CD player, since I had just blew a bundle replacing my dead receiver with a new pre/pro. However, getting a new BDP is not out of the question, given how cheap they are.

I have the Samsung BDP1600 (or something along those lines) it is 5 years old now and still works great with any disc, I suspect yours is having an issue with the laser or some other hardware inside the unit.

Yeah it's a model in that family. As long as it reads movies it's fine...I can use an iPod for music. No way is it worth getting too hung up about it. Thankfully BDPs are commodity items these days

Have you applied any firmware updates to the player lately? I'd either rollback the firmware update or update it to the latest one available. If that didn't do anything do a hard reset on the player to the original manufacturing settings before scrapping it.

Will do. Thanks for the advice.

Oh well. Firmware upgrade caused the thing to crash entirely. They sho' don' make 'em likes they used to.

So much for my next bottle of scotch.

If the firmware install caused it to crash entirely, look in the manual how to reset the player to original manufacture settings. Then try to play some CD's. This should only take a few minutes to do.