Thoughts on Audiolab 8300CDQ please

[Gazjam]

I have been using a toshiba sd9500 as a transport, thi serious high end build but swapping to the audiolab dedicated transport gave a small but noticable improvement in detail and clarity
.

Betters my modded Oppo 203 as well, by quite a margin.
Zero issues here Phil with scratched discs, quiet as a mouse in operation too.

Remember reading of a minority of folks that has their 6000CDT scratch discs, all around the same time.
(Big thread on AudioGon)

I suspected a bad batch, Friday afternoon job.

[Macca]

I read about the scratched disc thing some months ago. Took a brand new CD ran it in and out three times, not a mark on it.

I have discs that have been in and out of the Audiolab about ten times, still play perfectly.

I suspect that the people who complained about this either had some sort of fault issue with theirs, or, more likely, they made a mistake and their discs were already marked.

Also worth noting that a CD is relatively robust, a few blemishes on the surface won't cause the sound to skip or drop-out, it has to be fairly serious damage to create unrecoverable read errors.

[Barry]

With slot loaders, there is a greater potential likelyhood of leaving thumb marks on the disc as it is offered up and inserted. Greasy fingermarks can cause the laser to defocus and 'skip'. That is my only concern with slot loaders.

I have a slot loading CD player in my car - perhaps I should test it out.