I was chatting with a guy who said the HLD-X9 is a POS with the worst quality of all Hi Vision players and that this is the general consensus of those that have owned multiple Hi Vision players like himself. Does anyone agree with this?

I’m not the MUSE expert here but…

For one, it seems like the decoder has at least as much of an effect on picture quality as the player.

Secondly, unless I knew a machine was in perfect spec I wouldn’t judge its quality and even then not unless I had seen multiple examples of the same model since players can drift quite a bit.


I don’t know too many people in the English speaking world who have compared multiple recently services X9s to other models via the same decoder. That is a small flock.

Those are all good points, thanks for your input.

Could I ask if his opinion was based solely on the X9 performance on Muse LD playback, or does this include regular LD also?

He was saying all around. Do you believe it does a poor job with one vs the other?

Well to start with Muse playback, it’s often said the X9’s image has a greenish tint with film based material, but when I had until recently a Sony MSC 4000 decoder hooked up to my X9 I honestly couldn’t really detect this as hard as I tried on the 2 film discs in my collection (A River Runs Through It & Atlantis) there could of course be other film releases on the format where it’s more apparent so can’t really comment any further on that one.

On standard def LD I’m really happy with the players performance, I’ve had a Pioneer CLD-R7G and despite the fact that it’s not a particularly low noise player it still delivered all round excellent although perhaps rather digital looking (think dvd) PQ no doubt helped greatly by its high quality onboard comb filter. The first thing that became obvious when I first hooked up the X9 was that it clearly delivered a rather lower noise image (but still a tad digital looking) than the R7G although it’s comb filter wasn’t on a par with the former player - but once the X9’s composite output is fed through a Lumagen R2144 there’s no contest.


I’m thinking amongst the Pioneer HLD players the only two real contenders are the X0/X9 with the X0 perhaps possessing a slightly smoother more analog video look, this is likely where opinions divide - some prefer its reputed analog quality over the perceived perhaps slightly sharper but as some regard less natural PQ of the X9, tbh as above, I’m really content with my X9 it really has the ability to blow me away on well mastered discs projected on the large screen and I’ll have to admit to being quite fussy about image quality! In the end it’s imo purely down to personal taste. Having said all that, if tomorrow the opportunity arose to bag a mint X0 at a bargain price I wouldn’t think twice!

Anyway, this is purely my personal opinion and hopefully when Julien sees this he will chime in with his opinion as I believe he owns both of these players.

Thanks for sharing, I appreciate it!

I'm not sure where this comes from... I played twice the same MUSE LD on X9 and X0 in parallel (input #1 and #2 of the MSC-400, A/B was easy) and I couldn't tell a difference.

How much processing is done in the player since you need a MUSE decoder to eventually play the contents.
Would it be related to the OSD overlay (STOP/PLAY/etc.) from the player?

Julien

You couldn’t see a greenish tint in the X9? How do you think the picture compares between the two players?

I would argue that the MUSE decoder is more important and that the HLD-X* is merely a transport in MUSE mode!

The MUSE overlay chip is likely to be the same on X0 and X9, but I might be wrong.

The services manuals for X0/X9 do show different PCBs/component, so it might be different.

Julien

Thanks for your input. Do you know if the Mitsubishi MD-CZ11 is a good MUSE decoder?

What do you think of the PQ of standard LD’s on the X9 vs X0?

X0 is better than X9, potentially from extra filtering/stability circuitry.

But I saw an improvement over my X9 (used to play for nearly 20 years now) vs the X0 I got few years ago.

Julien

Gotcha, thanks.

Do you notice smear on the X9?

Anyway to calibrate these players?

Don't buy a cheap, broken one hoping to easily fix it.

Buy a working, tested one!

Julien

Not trying to buy anything broken. Just asking about calibration since I know it tunes a player in for the best performance and one out of calibration may be the cause of smear on the X9.

No adjustments will get rid of smear, thats in the circuit.
Good luck with LDs.

There are very few Hi-Vision players to begin with. From Pioneer, there is the HLD-1000, HLD-X9 and HLD-X0 for the consumer market. If the X0 is the best then the X9 and the 1000 will be worse with this logic. If you compare all Laserdisc players, then the X9 is far from the worst. It really depends on your point of view and your quality threshold. If you want the cream of the crop, top 1% performance and built quality, nothing short of HLD-X0 will satisfy you. If you are fine with the top 10%, the CLD-D70X and above should make you happy.

An out of tune player can swing +/- 10% in picture quality. With this equation, a top performing CLD-D703 might even beat a poorly tuned CLD-97 or better. Smearing is a problem if you know how to see it. In this, ignorance is a bliss. Once you see the imperfections in the LD picture, your eyes will always be drawn to them.

In this age of 4K video with roughly 48 times higher resolution, it is difficult to not find imperfections in the LD picture even with the best player and setup. If you are getting into LDs now for quality, I have bad news for you, you probably won’t ever be satisfied. If you are getting into it for nostalgia and some rare content then any player in great working condition should do the trick except maybe the very low end ones.

I know calibration can’t get rid of smear but it can help reduce it. I got my first player in 93’ and have around 20 players and 1000 LDs.

Thanks for your input! I collect players and LDs for nostalgia and have many of both but no Hi Vision players.

It sounds like you are a hobbyist and you understand what to expect from this format. I don’t think you can lose too much money if you buy an X9 to satisfy your nostalgia/hobbyist curiosity unless you significantly overpay for it. They hold their value pretty well. Just hold off for one to show up at a low end of its market value, enjoy it for a while and let go for roughly what you paid for it. If you really like it, you can keep it too of course. It is a really pretty looking player. It has got dual side playback. I wish it had a better picture than the X0. The X0 is not a very practical player with single side only.

Hi Vision is pretty cool but gets old really quickly once you own a few discs. The demo discs look really good. The playback is a bit cumbersome with the added decoder and unconventional audio outputs. If you have your disposable cash proportional to your curiosity, I would say go for it. It is really fun to put together a setup and make it work with modern AV systems. Once you get bored with it, you are likely to get what you put into the discs as they hold their values really good.