CD player not to buy

[Carl Cobb]

Similar thing happened to me; installed a Panasonic am/fm cassette w/6 disc
cd changer (in trunk of 87 300D).  Anyway, dealer tells me how wonderful and
reliable they are; I bite, lazy consumer that I was, and have it put in.

One month out of warranty the cd changer starts getting confused.......won't
work....try to pull out magazine...it has imploded.  I thought it would be
no problem to just buy another changer and plug it in.  Not so fast; the
head unit/changer was now discontinued.  Guess what?  The cable and din plug
is now different on the new head unit and mine is only compatible with the
older model.

Sorry, cannot fix; buy a new one!

Up yours, Panasonic.  I'll go and buy used decks for cheap and replace them
as they die if this happens another couple of times with other
manufacturers.  I will say I've been using an Alpine 7548 (?) am/fm cassette
w/6 disc changer for about three years now.  It has never skipped once,
always works, and sounds fine.  I do not use the internal amplification;
that is done by a McIntosh MC420.

Regards,

Carl

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Arman" <armanmik at n-jcenter.com>
To: <quattro at audifans.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 19, 2001 9:42 AM
Subject: CD player not to buy


>
> In response to the lister who inquired about what brand of CD player to
> look at:
>
> I have a Blaupunkt AM-FM-CD player with removable faceplate, model ACD
> 2900, and it is in an 86 5Ks.
>
> It is about a year and a half old, and for the past nine months has
> exhibited a strange quirk - it won't turn off! From time to time, even
> after turning off the ignition and removing the faceplate, the device
keeps
> playing merrily on, and eventually, this kills the battery in the car
> (which can be annoying, to say the least!).
>
> I've discovered that hitting the "reset" button (under the faceplate, use
a
> paper-clip end), shuts it off, but of course that loses ALL the radio
> presets, tone, balance and loudness control settings, etc., and there are
a
> LOT of them!
>
> I spoke to Blaupunkt about this shortly after it started happening, and
was
> informed that "The unit is out of warranty, and is essentially
> unrepairable. You'll need to buy a new unit, preferably a more expensive
> Blaupunkt. After all, the one you bought is just an entry level unit, so
> what do you expect?"
>
>
> Well what I *expect* is for the unit to work properly, and not crap out 15
> seconds after the warranty expires (let alone evidencing the problem
before
> the warranty is up!)
>
> I *bought* the damn thing, I didn't "rent" it!
>
> What I also expect is to indeed buy another, more expensive unit, but you
> can bet whatever portion of your anatomy you want that there is no way in
> hell it will ever be another Blaupunkt!
>
> Here is a perfect example of a big company trading on a reputation of
"fine
> German engineering", and then when it comes apart anyway, totally evading
> all responsibility - sorry, your warranty expired ten minutes ago. Too
bad.
> Buy another.
>
> No thanks. No more Blaupunkt for me. I won't buy from companies that don't
> stand behind their products.
>
> And YES, goddamn it, rant mode is ON! and will probably stay that way for
a
> while . . .
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Mike Arman
>