"AZ Nomad" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 14:31:15 +0000 (UTC), informer
wrote:


Do they work or are they a con?


Con. Dust is basically very tiny rocks and scraping them off of a fragile
lens at high speed is a sure fire way of scratching the lens.

People always say "use a CD cleaner" because it is a brainless fix and is
similar to using a VCR head cleaning tape.

However, a dirty lens is responsible for probably less than 2% of CD
player
failures, mostly people living in the midst of a duststorm. Far more
likely
is a mechanical problem, servo adjustment, or laser output.

If you must have the lens cleaned, spend the 10 minutes to pull the player
out
of your setup, pull the cover, and use a q-tip and denatured rubbing
alcohol.

Having been a professional repairer of CD players ever since they first came
on the scene, and having seen just about every make and model from cornflake
packet freebies to TTP priced 'professional' units, I cannot agree that only
2% of CD faults are caused by dirty lenses. In my humble opinion, at least
40% of CD problems are dirty lens related, a further 40% are caused by a
defective optical block, 10 % are mechanical, and a small 10% are support
circuitry related.

In contrast, DVD problems are most NEVER caused by a dirty lens. With those,
10% are probably mechanical problems, 50% are faulty optical blocks, and 40%
are electronic problems.

Arfa