This sounds like a good idea, or track down a nice basic single sided player, my personal preference.

You've had it with Pioneer players after two bad ones? You realize that these players are getting up in age and if you're having them shipped that can turn a working player into a doorstop if the shipper isn't careful.

The reason Pioneer's are mainly used is because they are/were the most common, parts are still available new (some) or from a plethora of donor machines, and there is a decent knowledge base on common problems and solutions.

It's kind of like saying I'm done with Volkswagon because the two 30 year old used cars I bought needed some repairs. Instead of taking them to a mechanic (or heeding a mechanic's advice) I screwed around with them and now they won't run. Thanks a lot Volkswagen.

Actually had 3 Pioneer players turn to crap on me.

None were damaged in shipping and all arrived fully functional through ebay/yahoo auctions Japan. Japanese sellers know how to (over) pack stuff for shipping.

They all worked for 3-6 months then on each player for no reason the audio would start "fuzzing" at the top end then followed by difficulty reading discs in general. To me it seems the lasers are prone to fail after a certain amount of use.

NEVER had this happen with my 2 Sony's. Their complex drive door gears just broke. I bought another Sony to get parts and while installing messed up all kinds of stuff. I could have actually kept running the Sonys if I'd kept them stripped down but that defeats the purpose of having a beuatifully designed Sony product on your rack. Yeah there is no repair person in my part of the world that would touch an LD player, let alone know what it is these days. It's Youtube/forums like this and DIY for me..

Face it Pioneer QC is/was inferior and in general the most important parts of Sony players are more reliable in general. Not the finest picture but definately superior sound and reliability to Pioneer players. I'm definately going with Sony on my next player.

Read here if interested in my sad LD life story: Hi from Australia

Actually it 's a good example of just trusting your instincts and not going with the crowd. I wish I'd never bought into the Pioneer LD hype, just stick with Sony like every other piece of electronics I own and love..

Why? I've never had an issue with side change mecha in any player. Just Pioneer lasers crapping out on low and high end players I've owned.

In other news I just powered up my LD-S9 again to see what would happen, came back to life. Huh.

It still has big problems. Won't play 80% of CLV discs (same old P0 error), has better luck with CAV that seem to load up with a bit of distortion at the very start. Audio on CAV is good too.

Now the CLV discs that DO play end up having horrible audio and the video goes to crap about 20 minutes in.

I don't know what I did to deserve this, worked perfectly from the day I got it. I always treated my player with upmost care and respect, always giving time for it to complete each command before I pressed the next button. Never went from tray out straight to play, always close door - wait - play. Hardly ever used reverse or anything like that. : ( Just s****y Pioneer reliability

I wish somebody here had directed me to this thread:

Fixing laser alignment without equipment?

It seems pretty obvious to me now that I've been having laser alignment problems. Nobody mentioned that here though...

you went willy nilly turning stuff, this is your fault not everybody elses

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the rein-o official signature:

Not really willy nilly, asked here first and acted on some less than perfect advice.

You do seem to have had some bad luck, but bear in mind most people on here have had Pioneer players and not had any issues with the laser diode. Sometimes you can just be unlucky on things like this. I don't think you can use one person's experiences to decide that Pioneer players must be shoddily made, even if you have had three of them.

Less than perfect execution of good advice You seriously blame krbahr for this? I dont remember him telling you to turn every pot you see. He said "RF level"

The RF level didn't work, OK fine. That's when you should come back for more advice. Instead you did strike off willy nilly.

: (

Let's cut laserdude a little slack on this. When my first attempt at importing an S9 arrived a smashed mess I was devastated and wrote off the $1000au I'd spent at first, luckily turned out I was dealing with a very honest and accommodating seller in Japan who refunded me in full straight away. It's sometimes difficult to place tone on the written word but where he sounds pissed above I'll take it as with the situation more than us.

I think I muddled RF max and RF level after looking at the photo of the board he posted and so laserdude if you feel that encouraged you to fiddle with the wrong thing I sincerely apologise. I've seen enough confidence expressed in krbahr, and in other forums going back many years that I have to agree that for the initial symptoms described his assessment would be sound.

As for the laser tracking thread it relates to crosstalk which does not seem to be the issue you're having looking at the video you posted (about 4+ minutes in). If I didn't know it wasn't I'd think it was videotape having some kind of intermittent tracking issue. Whether that means it has something to do with the laser tracking or tilt on LD, or some other problem such as a rotational speed issue, dodgy cap or solder join somewhere; I have no idea - I'm no expert and those are guesses.

All I will offer as advice is as above; proceed with care and caution, after all by your own admission past tinkering has not gone well for you. Short of someone being able to offer a suggestion based on the symptoms in the video, if you do try adjusting as per that thread mark the initial point so if it doesn't help your problem you can put it back where it was. It might not affect your given problem but may (almost certainly I'd think) be affecting something you're not necessarily aware of at the time. And make small adjustments each time before retesting - I note in that thread ruinatokyo was talking about 10 degree adjustment at first, and the final 'fixed' position was a net 10-15 degrees from start point.

Good Luck

Thanks Audioboyz, appreciate it. I was hasty with my adjustments before collecting as much intel as I could/should have, ie I should have waited for follow up posts by khrbar, not blaming any of you guys, everyones trying to help. Thanks again.