You bet! And before I muscle one on the bench the first thing that gets removed is that damned cast iron base (do NOT drop it on your foot!)
It seems like just yesterday that the challenge was going to a GM dealership to service a PR-7820 on site
I don't like getting old, soon I'll be outdated like LD technology

placebo effect is a nice thing sometimes. now I look at blu-ray players. they are so tiny, light. I know it wouldnt matter if they made them heavier and bigger, the picture and sound is basically bitstreamed in digital. BUT I hate to buy a 3lbs 8" by 6" player. I have my cld-97 sitting next to a samsung bd player. if you didnt know what plays what, you would think CLD-97 is ultimate player with superb pic and sound but the cheesy samsung beats it in everyway. its so sad!!!
You can still buy a somewhat heavy and bulky BD player from mcintosh, theta, goldmund etc.. for a few megabucks. but its just placebo effect, most of those guys use oppo or denon guts with cosmetic upgrades.

couldn't have said it better myself.

you know whats even lazier?
netflix, vudu, itunes, amazonvod etc...you pick a movie and you watch....no getting up, no buying disc, no switching disc.
your $50 streaming box has issues? some offsite tech will push firmware update and fix issues, again all this without you moving. your $50 streaming box broken? with labor rates nowadays,forget it...just buy a new one from amazon. it will be at your door next day:)

as long as there are guys like us..who appriciate the beauty of old tech..we always need(desperately) you Duncan.

Just thought I'd chime into this thread, because I'm located in Southern California. Recently, my Sony MUSE player seemed to be dying (fishy, leaking capacitor smell) so I was hunting craigslist for an interim player. To my surprise, I stumbled upon the same ad that was posted earlier in this thread. I made the guy an offer, but unfortunately, he had already listed it on ebay and was reluctant to pull the auction as there were already quite a bit of watchers. (And he was only about 1/2 hour drive from me!) Well, the auction ended a little too high for me, but thanks to this thread I saw that Kurtis was selling an S2 (minus the lovely rosewood side panels, remote, and an issue with the front button panel closing. I kept in contact with the seller of the X1 and he mentioned the total for shipping was basically $120. ($50 to ship and $70 in shipping materials) I really want to thank Kurtis for selling the S2, despite the issues that it has I'm super excited to be finally experiencing a player of this caliber. I hope whoever was the lucky buyer of the X1 gets all of it's issues resolved as well.

This placebo effect is really a good way of describing attempts to encase digital technology in a fancy, heavy case. With analog LD players, build quality goes a long way: there are huge differences in picture quality between entry level and high end decks, and the use of high quality transformers in players like the S2 and 97 goes a long way in helping LD performance. Digital disc players really don't need all of this, they are more like computers in terms of performance based on certain chipsets. Digital players just feel cheap - the tactile quality of a LD player is much nicer than some chunk of dressed up plastic. LD players feel like real engineering feats, with refinements in analog tech culminating in the XO: Death Star of laserdisc players. I would love to see a high definition analog disc the size of an LD, using some very fine pitched wavelength of laser to encode uncompressed video, since there were high band uncompressed LDs it would seem that improvements in laser tech might make this possible...or just a dream.

his shipping rates aren't correct at all. I just imported a X9 from Japan to Norway and paid 389 dollars for EMS, 136 dollars less =)

Yup, you defined lazy
And speaking of old technology yesterday my wife got a watch battery for a Seiko watch that came from the estate of my very best friend. The watch face looks HUGE on my wrist. And it took me forever to get used to a digital multimeter. For the longest time I wouldn't give up my Simpson analog meter. My boss at the time forced me to use the digital meter (and to this day I don't own a digital watch )

shipping on my X0 was 411,36 dollar from japan to the netherlands and it was shipt in its original box

The X1 arrived today for repair. When I was pulling it out of the box I heard "pop, pop, pop" I thought it was the bubble wrap popping. In reality I think it was my spine
Checking the power transformers the part number is different from the S2 so I would have to say a step down transformer would be proper...

whahahaha nice back breaker! i use mine to work out

I'm old and tired and I HATE exercise
If I want to lift anything it's a glass of scotch up to my lips

I thought that you had some wrestler kid to help you with the really heavy players?

TLK

The wrestler kid graduated high school a couple of years back and got a well paying job (union card and everything). We don't see him that often now days as his pay scale is out of our reach
My mother in law moved in with us and he did help me move some furnishings but when it comes to a heavy player I'm on my own

Duncan, get a back brace to protect yourself. I have to wear one if I lift anything over 10 pounds or I risk breaking the nerve stimulator leads installed in my spine that go to the Neurostimulator installed in my lower back - it creates electrical pulses that help block pain signals from my lower back and legs. That and pain meds help me live a 'normal' life.

You need to get one of these Duncan . . .



. . . just for those LD-S2's, LD-X1, HLD-X0's, HLD-X9's (I understand those are pretty expensive too) and Runco LJR II's (the one I had was about 50lbs or so!) that come in from time to time!

You can get that as a write-off since it's a business expense, right?

how did you injure your back?
i'm glad that you have pills and stuff to help with the pain, my girlfriend has a co-worker
who is such a hippie that she won't see the doctor but will see a chiropractor which is not helping.

can't you find people on craigslist to help do part time moving when you need them?
i'm sure if you put an ad up you will find some people.
the ads are free.

HA That's leads into how I ruined my back in the first place. Many many years ago I lifted one too many automatic transmissions by myself and tore the ligaments in my lower back. Every few years it rips again, the last time was when I reached to get the mail from the mailbox
The worst part is when it happens I can "hear" the tear in my ears. Whenever that happens retirement starts looking pretty damn good

I do have one but don't wear it as often as I should. Problem now is I don't remember where I left it

Chiropractic, what a joke - except for a very, very few limited ailments, it's as effective and about the same as homeopathic medicine, which is to say, completely worthless.

If you were asking me how I injured my back, in November 1987 I was stopped at a red light and a drunk lawyer rear ended me. It totally trashed his convertible Mercedes but hardly damaged the bumper on our new 1987 Chrysler New Yorker - but because of the way I was sitting with my foot on the brake, it slipped discs in the L4/5 area of my back. I had surgery in 1989 and again in 1993. Then my first implant in 2003 and a new one in 2007 because the battery had died on the first. The new one is rechargeable via induction through my skin. It helps a lot and I take 25mg of Methadone twice a day since it provides 12 hours of pain relief without the weird 'high' side effects of other narcotics like Percodan or Vicodin.