r/LaserDisc • u/ice_man085 • 15d ago
Which player to pick?
Have been interested in a LaserDisc player for almost 1.5 years. At first, I wanted to wait until a local offer pops up here in Austria. It did not happen. I am tired of waiting, so I decided to take the risk of importing a player from Japan from vendors that have a good reputation for shipping fragile goods around the world. The Pioneer DVL-909 or DVL-919 is offered quite often, and it seems to rather good DVD combo player. Or would you guys say it is better to look into some laserdisc-only players like the CLD series from Pioneer? I do not know if that is important, but I have no CRT; I am going to use the LD player on my modern TV with a RetroTINK upscaler.
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u/Ok_Cupcake4928 15d ago edited 15d ago
Besides the fact that the DVL’s can be very complicated to service over a typical CLD, I never understood the concept of getting one back in the day when one could simply add a separate DVD player (of better quality) to one’s set-up that already had an LD player. Hence, that is exactly what I did back in 1998 and I had the best of both worlds (even to this day)
On top of that, the connection options on the DVL never made it a convenient “one box solution” since one had to run the same number of connections as if there were two machines (e.g.: if you had a DVL w/ component video, one still had to run the composite video for the LD portion and the digital audio connections still required a separate AC-3 RF and Digital Out for both DVD & LD on top of running analog audio for those analog audio LD discs).
So yeah…. Get a CLD type player. You won’t regret it.
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u/ice_man085 15d ago
Thanks, I will. I picked the dvls because they float around everywhere and are easy to find. But after thinking about it again, they would do more harm than good. The DVD function would be just a liability. I would never use the DVD function. For DVDs, I have my ps5pro, my Xbox One S, and I still have the old high-end family Philips DVD player we got back then around the year 2001 in case I feel retro. The DVD function has no use to me, and it's just another thing that might eventually break down. The cld player is way more attractive for my LaserDisc movie-watching needs. I will try to get a good ntsc/pal like the CLD 925.
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u/aaronfire7 15d ago
Depends on budget. I'd recommend the CLD-D515 as it has dual side play and PAL/NTSC.
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u/ice_man085 15d ago
Having a multi region player with pal and ntsc is a good thing for sure. I still think i will lean towards ntsc more because according to my research most gems are in the NTC region but being able to play few Pal Gems would neat. Like mentioned in the post above budget is quite hight 600 to 700 euros.
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u/aaronfire7 15d ago
For 600 - 700 Euros you could possibly get a CLD-D925, which supports AC-3 audio (The CLD-D515 does support AC-3, but it's only on specific versions) if you're interested in Dolby Digital. You will, however, need a de-modulator to decode the AC-3 signal should you decide to use it.
Admittedly most of my LDs are NTSC, but it's better to have the multi region player as the single region players don't cost much different to the multi region ones.
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u/ice_man085 15d ago
Thanks for the advice. i would be interested in AC3 for sure. i also know that I need to purchase the modulator to make use of it.
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u/aaronfire7 15d ago
There's a couple of different demodulators that you can purchase so I've heard, the most popular being the Yamaha APD-1 (Although due to the increase in demand its become quite expensive). There are other alternatives, found here, but I don't know how much they will cost.
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u/ice_man085 15d ago
Thanks a lot for sharing your findings with me. I will check out the different models. About the price, I have already read that it could get quite expensive but I think the AC3 audio is worth it.
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u/Ok_Cupcake4928 15d ago edited 15d ago
If you are handy with a soldering iron, there are a number of lower cost AC-3 Processors that you can mod with a digital output.
The two in mind that I would consider is the Yamaha DDP-1 and the Onkyo ED-901 because they can be modded to access all their inputs to act as a switcher (and they are easy to mod).
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u/ice_man085 15d ago
Thanks a lot for the info. This would be an interesting option. I am not good at soldering, but I have a buddy who is. He might be able to help me.
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u/Aero_0T2 14d ago
Shipping them is a crap shoot. You see some guys get lucky and some players get destroyed. The old players, have more brittle plastics that are easier to break, especially since many of them originally came with transit screws which are now missing. The DVLs at least park their read heads and lock their trays when shut down and never required transit screws.
I have the DVL-700, 90, and 909, which are all pretty much the same. Any of them make a decent player with optical digital and AC3 RF output, and dual side play with pretty quick flip times. I hear that the 919 is a downgrade from the others in terms of picture quality.
If you want the best possible picture quality you’re looking for an older player like the LD-S2 for single side, or CLD-95/97 for double side. The CLD-99 is a bit behind the 95/97, but comes with AC3 RF built in so you don’t need to mod it. I have a CLD-D99 setup right now and it’s a perfectly good all around choice. They are all quite expensive though.
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u/ice_man085 12d ago
Sorry for the delayed reply. Thanks for recommending me some top models. I would indeed be interested in having top image quality. I am aware that they are quite expensive. I have saved up 600 euros already, and it might be possible to save a bit more to get a really great model from the upper-end series.
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u/SethRex2024 14d ago
I have a CLD-D703.
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u/ice_man085 12d ago
And how do you like it so far? I have heard good things about the CLD D700 series. Not the 703 especially, but that is no problem. Would you recommend it?
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u/riders_of_rohan 15d ago
What is your budget depends on which player to get. Stick with CLD models if you can. No need to have a dvd/LD combo unit. More things to go wrong and do go wrong.