Questions about a car stereo

I have a car stereo that I took out of a 1995 Honda Civic that I used to own. I bought the car in 2005 and sold it in 2016. It came with the car. It is a Pioneer DEH-P2000. I hooked it up to run on AC power and it sits up on a shelf in the garage. It has a CD player. I have noticed something odd about the player. It plays regular audio CDs just fine, but it won't play the audio discs that I have burned. I thought I heard somewhere that that is a sign that the laser is getting weaker. Is that true? If so, can you guess how much longer the laser will last? If that's not what is happening, what is?

There is also an issue with the radio reception. The radio has a car antenna that I bought somewhere. Its about 18 inches long and is covered with rubber or vinyl. I have the antenna right next to the stereo, about five feet off the floor. The radio picks up a few FM stations poorly, and no AM stations at all. The car that I have now sits in the garage right near the stereo on the shelf. It picks up several FM stations and several AM stations just fine. My home stereo is in a room right by the garage. It gets several FM stations good, and is marginal with AM. It has a dipole hanging on the wall for FM and one of those loop antennas for the AM. The house has a standing seam metal roof. Why does the old car stereo have such poor reception? Is there anything I can do about it?

 

A 31" steel rod antenna works the best on a car stereo.
Putting the antenna outside will really make the reception pop.

The CD's need to be in WAV format. It won't play any compressed formats like MP3's.
CD's must be finalized.

 

31" is close to 1/4 wavelength in the middle of the FM Broadcast band (87.8–108.0 MHz). Even better would be a 1/2 wavelength antenna which is around 55-60" IIRC. Cut it long, find a weak station as close to the middle of the band as possible and trim for best performance.

The AM Broadcast band (525–1705 kHz) is a different animal. At 1115 kHz, the middle of the AM band, 1/4 wavelength is around 220 feet. So AM reception may improve marginally, but will improve more if you turn off all Switch Mode Power Supplies; LED lights, CFLs, florescent lamp ballasts, phone chargers, etc. Any power supply without a transformer.

 

Post number 2 said the files need to be in WAV format. It said compressed files like MP3 won't play.

The burned discs that won't play in the car CD player will play in the DVD player in my home stereo in my living room. That is a play that I have just been using for Audio CDs.

Does that make any difference regarding what you said?

 

Most older CD players could not read CD-R discs reliably the same was true for older DVD players that would refuse to play them at all!

Not sure how old that model is as I'm more of a Kenwood car stereo guy myself I Made a custom "boombox" out of an old cooler