CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[RT9342]

I was wondering something. You know the "non-serviceable resonator" in the tonearm? Anyone know exactly what it's composed of and how it works...and how reliable it is? I've looked inside a couple - there's always a long, straight bus with some funny thing at the end of it. I just wonder if these go bad over time, affecting playablility. Seems like CED discs ALWAYS have playback problems nowdays, even with a new stylus, and I've even had trouble playing discs that were still in the factory shrink-wrap and properly stored. But I can remember when we first got our SFT-100 brand new in the early 80s, and I remember going to the store and renting and/or buying discs, and they NEVER had playback problems. Only one used disc we bought had problems, and only on a couple of scenes - turned out that it had a bunch of someone's fingerprints all over the disc. Also, we had one disc eject on top of the caddy and my dad put it back in the caddy very carelessly, getting fingerprints all over it, yet only the first couple of minutes of side 2 ever had playback problems. Now look at them...that's whay I'm curious about that resonator. Anyone know more about it?