I've got an alpine cda-7993 reciever, probably had it about 6-7 months. The damn thing has a serious problem reading cd's. I'll burn a CD, put the thing in, and all it says is ERROR. After fucking with it for about ten minutes it finally works. I'm thinking it probably has to be cleaned, but the owners manual says not to use those cleaner cd's and to have it cleaned by an authorized alpine place (heh.. yea..) anyway anyone have any input on what i can do to make my head unit usable??

Sounds like you should send it to alpine to get repaired.

too much $$$, i'd rather spend the cash on go-fast parts. after dropping almost 2 grand into audio, i am DONE. the local alpine dealer wants damn near $60 to clean it. i'm thinking about ripping it out of the car, tearing it open, and cleaning the damn lense myself. im 95% sure that its just a dirty lense.

Maybe it is. But I just replaced my Alpine because of the same issue. As long as I had it it would hardley ever play Burned CDs...I'd get the error...