Rotel RCD-1070 replacement

Your machine is worth (if it was working perfectly): less than $200. retail to an interested buyer. First off no one is gonna be interested in a ten year old CD player, unless it was really special. You player is, unfortunate for you, not special.
So, i would say you are looking at a MINIMUM (I haven't heard of any repair person even taking a cover off for less in many years) of $100. just to look at it. Remember MOST of the replacement parts that make it go do not exist anymore. So you spent $100 just to have the repair person tell you he can't fix it.. here is the bill.
My recommendation is donate it to Goodwill. They will sell it for $25 and offer a 7 day guarantee. So the buyer can find out it is crazy. THEY may be a techno dude and work on it. Or they may return it and it will be discarded.
Sorry to say you have what is called a pile of junk. IF it plays MOST of the time.. just use it. If it goes CRAZY most of the time and is frustrating. Throw it away by donation. Goodwill does not want junk. but it may be good enough for $25 for someone to love it.
This is my opinion.

I completely agree with Elizabeth. If it's skipping CDs intermittently, it's probably time for a new unit. You got your money's worth and now it's time to move on. Advances in CD players have been significant just in the past 5 years or so. I have the Rotel RCD-1072 and it's excellent. Great reviews. It's now been discontinued by Rotel and replaced by their new RCD-1520 with a list price of about $900.00 or in that area with a front loading slide in CD transport instead of a drawer. There seems to always be a few RCD-1072s for sale on Audiogon in the $400.00 area. New $700.00. But you have so many other brands and models to choose from. It can be overwhelming. Much comes down to what your budget is for a new unit. How much do you want to spend?

Peterman, I own the rotel RCD-1071 which had the same symtoms (intermittent skipping) as you are experincing. I changed the laser eye as well as the ribbon which runs from lazer to the system board and the problem was solved. Remove the cover, then the CD chassis and make note of the part # and/or S/N number on the lazer. Google the part and you should come up with a number of hits and places where you can order the part from. The part runs approx 20-25USD, Note...you can buy directly from rotel but the cost is 60+ dollars. Also, contact rotel support directly for the Ribbon replacement (BTW...tech support is excelent)the price on the ribbon is 2+ dollars. When I experienced the issue I initially changed the laser but that alone did not solve the problem. Once I added a new ribbon the issues went away. the process is dead simple and should take more than a hour....good luck

Agree with Rudd--I've observed these symptoms a few times and the problem is probably a worn out laser. If you can get it fixed your machine ought to work fine.

Thanks to Rudd & Tobias, I tracked down the part number for the laser pickup and ordered one online for about $13 shipped. If that doesn't work, I'll probably see what I can get for it on ebay.

I found the Yamaha DVD-S1800 on Amazon for $80, so I went ahead and picked one of those up too. I've been curious to try SACD and DVD-A, so it looked like an inexpensive way to get started. If I'm happy with the sound of the Yamaha, I'll probably sell the Rotel either way. If it sounds bad, I'll probably just ship it back to Amazon and look elsewhere for a universal player. I can always upgrade later to an outboard DAC, when budget allows.

I appreciate your quick responses and helpful tips!