I bought a refurbished LD-S9 from yahoo Japan auctions seller kiroro_z last year. The player worked flawlessly for three months, gave me the best LD video I've ever seen and decent audio too. Then without warning the audio started to break up on music discs and straight after that the player started having trouble spinning up discs in general and gave me the P0 error almost every time.

I've tried cleaning the clamps and the laser lense and lubricating the ball bearings in the spindle. I'm out of ideas!

I've posted up a 5 minute video of the problems if you have time to watch. Any diagnosis or advice/opinion would be very much appreciated. As far as I can tell my laser is just losing power and it's terminal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39HSyxbXLi8

When the digital audio starts to crack but the video is fine then the RF signal from the pickup is getting weak. There is an RF level adjustment on the motherboard you can try turning up. If the servos start to go out this can happen too. All I can say is if it cannot be aligned and work again then it is either a motherboard issue in the signal part or a bad pickup.

Thanks so much for your post krbahr. That is great information. I have a habit of making things worse when I touch stuff inside the unit so I'm going to take what you said and read the CLD-99 service manual I found on here closely before I do anything but I will report back on what I can achieve with that advice. As the S9 manual isn't easily available, the CLD-99 should have some similarities to the S9 chassis I've heard? Thanks again.

Actually krbhar, I can't figure out from service manuals/youtube/search if there is a physical dial or switch on the motherboard to do this or if it has to be done through the service mode? Can you please advise on this. Thanks again.

Edit, I removed some panels in the player, found what you were talking about and took a pic of the current settings. Is it just a matter of physically turning the dial closest to where it says RF MAX and RF LEVEL? Which number or dot should line up with what to maximise the output? Total novice here. Thanks again.

I'm no expert but I would think mark it's original setting and then turn it up slightly each time and test until it is sufficiently high to fix the problem. If it doesn't fix the problem I think turn it to the original setting and try something else.

Thanks audioboyz but which way is "up"? haha

Those things are just like little volume controls so clockwise should be up; which would seem to agree with the 'RF max' notation on the PCB being on the RHS.

Okay, thanks I'll give it a try and report back

Well I just tried the RF MAX dial at all different levels and managed to get rid of the P0 error. The video and audio will still break up after a few seconds though.

So I tried adjusting the RF LEVEL dial in combination and that gave me a whole bunch of new errors, P6, F5 and I couldn't get it back to where I had my initial success.

Should I try messing with all the other dials? Tracking, laser focus etc?

In other news I've taken this new knowledge and applied it to my last player that I was going to pass on on ebay because its digital audio was cracking. CLD-2290, not the greatest picture but actually superior audio to the LD-S9 until the audio started giving up a year back.

I opened up the CLD-2290 and found an RF LEVEL dial (No RF MAX dial) and turned it up a quarter turn. Magic, worked like a charm and audio cracking is gone. Mechanically very reliable I always liked the 2290, especially for the sound and now i have AN LD player until I get the S9 working again (?). Coolness.

No no no - caution is always wise!!

That's why marking the original position is a good idea so you can return it there if things don't work out how you hoped. Muck up the wrong things - and especially several at once and you'll probably end up needing test discs and equipment like an oscilloscope to get it right again.

I wouldn't go past trying to adjust the RF as krbahr suggested!

Your success with the CLD-2290 suggests you might be on the right track. You should try returning the RF max to the original setting and adjust ony the RF level on the S9. I think that's what krbahr meant in the first place.

Well thanks Audioboyz, good advice.

I tweaked and tweaked the RF dials and nothing so I maybe foolishly tried the tracking dial and I had some success with the S9. It would now start playing discs and while having trouble and drop outs in the first 30 seconds to a minute would stabilise and play the rest of the disc just like it used to with amazing picture and good sound. It was worse with CAV, again dropping out in the first minute or two but then stabilising to perfect playback for the rest of the disc.

Anyway being the idiot I am I didn't stop there and count myself lucky. I wanted to make it play perfectly from the beginning like it used to..so I kept tweaking...with the RFs and the tracking. So then the whole thing went back to not even being able to start playing discs, gave the P0 error again. Then on one attempt it started spinning the disc backwards at a very high speed. I then heard a loud pop like a cap or transformer blowing and shut it down at the wall. I checked for blown caps, couldn't find any. Powered it back up, worked as normal but it can't recognise discs anymore like it used to do every time.

I sure have a way of destroying these things.. : (

Well, just because there's a dial there doesn't mean you should turn it, or that "turning it up" will make things better. RF level is one of the few things you can mess with through trial and error, just about everything else requires specific test patterns and/or equipment like an oscilloscope. Caution and a methodical approach to troubleshooting are your friend.

What krbahr was getting at is that if the RF level increase doesn't solve the problem, something else is the culprit. The RF level is the easy fix to try and see if something more major, and requiring more experience/knowledge to fix, is at play.

Well my $1000 LD player is toast now anyway.. : (

Adjust the "RF LEVEL", NOT the "RF MAX"

yeah it was like a sonic boom of electrical death...

NO touching RF MAX, got it. Thanks Krbhar and thanks for all your help you guys but I'm hopeless. My 2290's audio started cracking again tonight as well...the burden of the clueless Laserdisc fanatic..f**k it, I think I'm going to save up for a Sony HIL-C2EX, I never had audio issues with Sony players (only mechanical drive door ones that eventually got me to destroy two whole MDP-650s while trying to save one)..the quest continues...

What you really need are lower end players that you can tinker with.
get some CLD-D5xx or equivalent of players, will be easier for you to get parts and keep running.
good luck.

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Well thanks for the luck and advice but wouldn't my 2290 fit into that category?

I know it's taboo to say but think I've just had it with Pioneer players, Sony never gave me playback or audio issues. Sure the best picture I've ever seen was on a Pioneer (my LD-S9) but that was only when it worked.

I think I just need a Sony with a sound drawer mecha and I'll be fine. The C2EX looks like the most solidly built Sony plus I might even get a MUSE disc along the line just for the novelty..

Then again I seem to be cursed more than the average LD user so who knows..