big doh! But an honest doh!

I learned the commands in from the factory remote and it still didn't work.

I'm thinking WTF is the problem here. I put the emitter right over the IR receiver diode. You can plainly see it when you shine a flashlight on the front panel. And yes I had tried lifting the emitter and holding a few inches away from the receiver diode.

So, then I start to notice a little residue on the other side of the front panel, where possibly another emitter had been placed (this was an older CD player that another CI firm had installed with a Niles InteliControl system). Shine my flash light on that area...no receiver diode, but I think, WTF give it a try.. sure enough, it all starts working. No idea why, but it appears I'm not the first one to have to stick an emitter on the wrong side of this CD player. I'm guessing that some of the IRDB commands would work now. Sheesh!!!. I knew that all of those codesets could not be wrong.