I rarely ever have much to contribute here, because (knock on wood) none of my four Jaguars develops issues to resolve. Lately I’ve been driving the X300 VDP daily and decided I really enjoyed my tunes in the XJS convertible all last year, so I grabbed the CDs from it and put them in the trunk cartridge. Then began the “NO CONT” problem, in all its guises described in preceding posts. I read many post here and determined I’d do Jos’ fix, as I’m handy enough with a soldering iron to fix my own Sony TVs & such (and have them actually work ten years on!). So I pulled the console to get at the head unit.
Then I thought I ought try one thing mentioned here by someone in one thread or other–I took out the home-made CDs that play so well all the time in the convertible’s Alpine in-dash unit and replaced them with factory-made CDs.
NO MORE “NO CONT” indicator. Every CD played correctly without a hitch.
So if you’re like me and burn your own CDs from your own collection of 200,000 bits of music, it might be well and good if you encounter the “NO CONT” indicator to do as the poster whose name I wish I could now find again said we ought–try commercial CDs before dissembling the head unit & soldering away. I know Jos’ fix may well be likely needed in many cases, but as that Unknown Poster said, “try the simple stuff first”. I should have tried the commercial CDs first, but me being me, I disassembled the console first. Takes only 5 minutes on the x300, so no biggy, but I could have saved myself that 5 coming out and another 5 going back, by just trying that simple bit of putting in known quality CDs.
It’s interesting to me that the unit in the XJS is so much more forgiving, but it is 20 years newer, after all, with the full range of data handling via phone/MP3s, bluetooth, CD, satellite and such, where the X300 stock OEM unit is just AM/FM/Tape/CD. Doubtless there are differences in data handling (over-sampling, error correction, etc.) programmed into the units, with the new unit in the convertible being more flexible.
Anyway, I wanted to lend my experience and second that wise post of the guy who suggested to use commercial-grade CDs, clean cartridge, etc., before deciding there’s some fault with either the factory head or factory CD changer.
I should have known to check this myself. The unit had worked perfectly last road trip, packed full of commercial CDs. It was only after I put the Alpine in the convertible that I started making my own CDs, which were the source of my problem in the older less-forgiving changer. (I’ll follow the rest of his advice and look into getting higher quality blanks. I’m satisfied my burner is very good as I didn’t skimp on that when I bought it and it’s been rock-solid. Good blanks might let me have my obscure bits of music in the VDP. At some point, I might like a newer unit with more features, but for now, I, like most of you, just want the factory set up to work. And with commercial CDs, it IS, without that annoying “NO CONT” error.