I know what the best LD players are supposed to be, the 99, 97, D704. But lets say one just felt that need to karaoke, and they wanted LD and CD+G functionality. What would they seek out?

I'm partial to the CLD-V880. I have one and it plays LD, CD, CD+G and VideoCD. And has two mic inputs.

Has a lot of voice effects that I never use too.

The "upgrade" to that is the DVL-V888. Plays LD, DVD, CD, CD+G and VideoCD. That one I don't have, but have been trying to get one.

I have the Pioneer DVL-V888 - really nice player and with some excellent Karaoke features (competition mode!!)

Does anybody know anything about the CLD V860?

It's two steps back from the V880, so I'm thinking from maybe 95 or 96. Looking at the images from the LD Archive site, the differences from the V880 is lack of VCD support and AC-3 output (not that you really need those if your main use for this player is Karaoke.) It does have CD+G support, so that will do you well for about 95% of karaoke discs out there (there are some DVD karaoke discs--though they are kinda rare.)

how about mode wise any sort of funky modes this one might not have? I only ask because there seem to be a few of these on ebay, and since I asked no V880s

That I can't tell you. I mean there are several modes on the V880 (scoring and game, I believe) that I never use (just karaoke and movie.) Looks like the V860 has the same switch on the front for these modes, but I can't be sure.

Only thing I can tell you about the different modes is that while in karaoke mode, you can't switch to the ANALOG tracks on the discs. It locks onto the DIGITAL tracks. That might sound a bit wonky, but I have yet to come across an ANALOG only Karaoke LD (I do have Queen's Greatest Karaoke Flix which has the original versions of the songs with Freddie singing on the ANALOG track with the karaoke version on the DIGITAL tracks--but that isn't affected.)

Yes the karaoke LDs that I have all have the lyrics on the analog tracks, and no lyrics on the digital. That may have been how its designed.