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How to get best sound from a Laserdisc
https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1380		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  Guest [ 09 Jul 2012, 05:05 ]
Post subject:  How to get best sound from a Laserdisc
My major hobby is audio. When I heard a Laserdisc recently at a friend's house who is an opera fanatic I was extremely impressed with the sound! It was better than I had heard on most DVD's. I had a blast listening and watching his Laserdiscs. I had never seen one before and I had to dive in and try this. This happened today!

I bought a Pioneer DVL 90 machine this morning and finally played a Laserdisc and was extremely impressed. My question is how does one get the best sonics possible. Most of the discs that I have bought are opera and classical concerts. I have an audiophile system and plugged the audio out into my audio system. I noticed that the Laserdisc had both digital and analog settings. I still have a vinyl turntable so I was immediately attracted to the analog over the digital. The analog's volume was much lower than the digital and I was not convinced that it is superior to the digital on the 2 discs I listened to. Which setting is typically better on a laserdisc. If it is digital, I think that I read somewhere that some of you use modern Dacs with your machines.
Does this make a large difference on the Laserdisc? Lastly, I bought this Pioneer unit because it was available locally (seller brought it to my house) and relatively inexpensive ($140.) I now read that it is a combination unit because it plays the various types of software while compromising ultimate Laserdisc performance. Is there a better machine for sonics out there? I am already having a ball with this format. Thanks for all the help. Unbelievable that I bought about 50 discs for $80 including shipping. People also said that vinyl was dead! Bob
Author:  naiaru [ 09 Jul 2012, 05:15 ]
Post subject:  Re: How to get best sound from a Laserdisc
baranyi wrote:
My major hobby is audio. When I heard a Laserdisc recently at a friend's house who is an opera fanatic I was extremely impressed with the sound! It was better than I had heard on most DVD's. I had a blast listening and watching his Laserdiscs. I had never seen one before and I had to dive in and try this. This happened today!

I bought a Pioneer DVL 90 machine this morning and finally played a Laserdisc and was extremely impressed. My question is how does one get the best sonics possible. Most of the discs that I have bought are opera and classical concerts. I have an audiophile system and plugged the audio out into my audio system. I noticed that the Laserdisc had both digital and analog settings. I still have a vinyl turntable so I was immediately attracted to the analog over the digital. The analog's volume was much lower than the digital and I was not convinced that it is superior to the digital on the 2 discs I listened to. Which setting is typically better on a laserdisc. If it is digital, I think that I read somewhere that some of you use modern Dacs with your machines.
Does this make a large difference on the Laserdisc? Lastly, I bought this Pioneer unit because it was available locally (seller brought it to my house) and relatively inexpensive ($140.) I now read that it is a combination unit because it plays the various types of software while compromising ultimate Laserdisc performance. Is there a better machine for sonics out there? I am already having a ball with this format. Thanks for all the help. Unbelievable that I bought about 50 discs for $80 including shipping. People also said that vinyl was dead! Bob

Only the "older" LD titles are analog only, so if you're using the digital tracks, you're better off using a digital output (especially if you already have an audiophile set-up). If you're just talking about digital audio though a digital connection, another player shouldn't really make a difference (but then again, I'm no audiophile). However, if you want an improvement in PQ or analog AQ, then you should look into another player.
Author:  rein-o [ 09 Jul 2012, 05:22 ]
Post subject:  Re: How to get best sound from a Laserdisc
i know others will answer this better than me.
i have mine hooked up with analog only, i used to have an amp with digital but then had to have both
hooked up and had to select what i wanted to hear from amplifier.

if you use the red and white you will still get the sound from the digital tracks but it will analog sound.

so if you use the digital out you will only get the digital tracks, if you use the analog out you will get the sound from all tracks analog and digital but it will be out of the analog outs.

and you will have to select which you want from the LD player, if you have the remote you will press the audio buttons.

when i had both hooked up i didn't really notice that much of a difference, personally.
Author:  signofzeta [ 09 Jul 2012, 05:45 ]
Post subject:  Re: How to get best sound from a Laserdisc
Most hardcore LD people these days are using at least 3 inputs on their amp for their LD player.

Digital: via TOSLINK or SPDIF. You can only listen to the digital tracks on the disc from these outputs. By hooking things up digitally you bypass the DACs in the player, which is probably a good thing assuming your DAC, receiver, whatever is of decent quality. By using the digital out you take whatever is in the LD player audio-wise completely out of the equation. This is a good thing for audiophiles since no LD player has what I would consider "audiophile-grade" DACs in it except for maybe some really expensive stuff. Most of these players didn't cost any more than a high end DAC by itself. The digital output also allows for DTS, although the selection of DTS LDs is basically puny.

Analog: Via the analog outputs you can hear either the digital or analog tracks on the disc. With an older disc that doesn't have digital audio you will need the analog outputs because the most (all?) players don't have AD converters for sending the analog tracks out eh TOSLINK/SPDIF. Usually what's on the analog track of the LD is the same as what's on the digital, but with many discs there are isolated music tracks, commentary, alternate languages, and other clever things. Because of this, you can't ignore the analog.

AC-3: Only for 5.1 Dolby Digital. If you can use it, DO IT, but I doubt there are many (any?) opera LDs with AC-3.
Author:  krbahr [ 10 Jul 2012, 00:03 ]
Post subject:  Re: How to get best sound from a Laserdisc
The analog is a FM encoded analog signal recorded onto the LD and then read off and decoded just like FM radio. So it will have the frequency limitations associated with FM encoding so it will not have all the upper response like a LP will have but it is not bad. The DVL-90 has a bit-stream D/A so you will find the sound a little thin verses the multi-bit D/A's. I would suggest connecting the analog outputs for older LDs that do not have the digital PCM tracks and connect the digital output to your multi-bit D/A to get the warmer sound. These also use the typical JRC 4556 (The Elite's LD players may have used the 5532) op amps on the digital output which is a decent performer but not audiophile like the BB2604 or others. You have to get older US players (CLD-95 or LD-S2 preferred) or the Japanese HLD-X0 or HLD-X9 to get multi-bit D/A's inside the player.

The big difference is that the DVD audio commonly compresses the dynamics to allow playback on a TV or cheap stereo. The LD community pushed for full soundtracks made for a home theater. The LD community made LD audio what it is. Saying that some of the early LDs Audio before the community push had average sounding sound.
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