Tascam CD-500B Button Repair

The Tascam CD-500B is one of a sadly quickly dying breed — a professional grade CD player, with balanced audio output (and AES/EBU digital) as well as RS-232 and contact closure remote control. Unfortunately, it features some very non-professional grade buttons on the front panel. I don’t even understand what on earth they were thinking.

Symptom: Buttons “fall” into front panel. Operation of button is impossible.

Broken off button
Button with broken hinge. Note that the switch is off center and sort of BESIDE the button, not directly under it as it is on Denon players

Problem: Thin plastic hinge section of button has broken.

Solution: Wedge button in place from below so it’s trapped between the front panel, the wedge, and the switch on the circuit board.

Disassembly of the player: This player is truly and sadly built like total BPC (Black Plastic Crap). You have to remove the rack ears, top cover, and the entire front panel. Carefully release the wires going to the front panel and unscrew the one visible grounding jumper. Unplug the two multi pin connectors (they cannot be mixed up – different number of pins). Remove all the silver screws around the front of the player and release the tabs on the right and left sides, then drop the front forward. Remove two screws holding in the LCD, then you can unscrew and remove either button board as needed.

Wedge the broken button(s) from below, then set them into the front panel with it tilted downwards and reassemble.

It is worth noting this player uses what appears to be a standard slotload SATA cd-rom drive as its transport! I have not tried substituting drives yet to see what happens. The buttons break before the transport 🙂

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