Hi there!

Most of you probably (hopefully) know about Kevin Kobos aka The Good Squid and his fantastisc LD selling skills. He is american but lives in Japan and speaks/reads jap.

Soon I'll have my new player arrive from him.

The 3rd best player one could possibly own: Pioneer LD-S9!:)

X0 being the top player (but spare parts/repairing just about impossible)
and the X9 being number 2.

The LD-S9 is beautiful, and naturally has both side play and AC3 rf out AND optical DTS out. And a great comb filter.

Basically it is an X9 without the MUSE Hi-Vision.

Woohoo!

Would love to hear from other S9-owners

Don't want to ruin your fun and expectations but...
There are many other players that are IMHO better than the S9.
It is very prone to CLV smear. Annoyingly almost.

Still not bad, but certainly no 3rd place.
Maybe in the top 10, somewhere at the very end.
Substance had a list somewhere I think.
And I agreed with that list, back when I read it.

This list? http://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?p=73623#p73623

Rankings like that are basically meaningless unless you've owned dozens of players and compared them on dozens of displays, which Substance has. As long as you like what you have, that's all that's important. If you have a problem with your player then consult a list like that.

Looking at the list...it's a good thing I like what I have because I can't afford to go much higher!

I'll probably get a 97 some day but that's about all I have in me, I think. Currently sitting in 99 land.

If you like the CLD-99 you'll like the LD-S9. Inside the unit it is a 99 with a newer 3D adaptive filter for NTSC artifacts.
The X0 and X9 are completely different animals.
Add AC-3 to the LD-S2 and that is a player you need to see.

I should have noticed you are in Norway, it will be better than the European players you had available to you.
As for the smear with this series player, it depends a lot on your TV/Monitor and your settings. The amount of smear will tell you the quality of the power supply, better supplies equal less smear. Also properly adjust the black level as if you turn it up higher than normal you can really see it.
Smear does not bother me, I'm picky about background noise so I prefer the S2 and 97.

Laserdisc were never an officially released product here in Norway. Stuff got imported from all over the world. Three businesses did imports back in the day. Even the HLD-X9 were imported to Norway through perhaps the biggest store. Though, most players around seems to be EU models, but most discs are US NTSC.

I've owned the LD-S9 my self. Using it on my CRT TV it were phenomenal. Did struggle using it on modern displays, wasn't until I got a Crystalio II that the picture quality was good enough to rival the CRT. That was after I had procured my current player. Never got to see my S9 properly on a modern display. Probably one of the benefits with the S9 is the lack of CD support, so it should have a better grip ring compated to players that double as CD players.

Problem with the S9 and X9 grip rings is that the top part of the clamp is the same part used in the CLD-99. So even though you get the larger lower clamp surface, once the rubber grip looses it gripping ability it still has a CD ring pressing down on top to clamp. Extremely disappointing!!

S9 is a great player but the list Substance posted is accurate.

This issue is that most of the players above it on Substances list are more expensive and harder to come by....You should be happy with the S9.