George (Xti16), the OP's statement about speed variation was correct. From this Philips paper on CD technology:
Regards,
-- Al
The pits in a CD are 0.6 micron wide (1 micron is 1/1000th of a mm), 0.12 micron deep and 0.9 to 3.3 micron long. A disc full of these pits, with a track pitch of 1.6 micron, has a capacity of 650 to 700 MByte. Since the information is recorded on a spiral track, and is read out at a constant speed of 1.25 m/s from the inside to the outside of the disc, the rotational speed decreases as the disc is played from 500 to 200 r.p.m.I too have never encountered or heard of the phenomenon the OP has experienced.
Regards,
-- Al