Since it's a little hard to get a bunch of information about different models in one place and because I thought someone could benefit from my experiences, I thought I'd share them here. I've gone through a number of players in my quest for the ultimate in Laserdisc picture quality. The following list is every player I've owned and some comments about each:

Pioneer LD-S2
The best player I have owned so far. The picture on good discs is very smooth and noise free, though not quite as sharp as the later model Pioneers. Single side play is the price you pay for the PQ. Don't expect a perfect picture though; there's only so much a player can do if the source material is poor.

Panasonic LX-900
In my opinion, this is an underrated player. It shows none of the CLV smear that pioneer's are known for. The picture is fairly sharp and has good low noise levels. The restrictive AGC circuit has been mentioned a few places, but I've never found it to be distracting. This is my backup player now, and I will hold on to my AC-3 modded model.

McIntosh MLD-7020 AKA CLD-97
This is a rebadged CLD-97 with the signature McIntosh styling and an AC-3 output added. A very good player with dual side play. Noise levels were nice and low. The picture was a little soft, but I've heard there is a way to increase the sharpness. Ultimately I decided the CLV smear was too much and parted ways with it. I think I let this one go a little too early.

LD-S1
Smaller than its successor the LD-S2, the LD-S1 is not a bad player. It is single sided and LD only with no optical or coaxial output for the digital audio tracks (though it does play them). The player has a slight issue with false outlines and the picture was a little on the soft side, but it kept noise levels down.

CLD-1010
For some reason, they decided to put a red laser in this player. It really helps with tracking. I've found the picture to be very noise free and sharp. It suffers from false outlines however and it has no digital memory for still frame on CLV discs.

CLD-R7G
This player is essentially identical to the pioneer elite CLD-59/CLD-604. I owned a CLD-59 at the same time as this player and under the hood they are virtually indistinguishable. The R7G adds a 3D comb filter that really cleans up the picture and puts it ahead of the 59 on which it's based.

CLD-59
An average player. Don't let the "Elite" badge fool you. The picture is soft and fairly noisy.

CLD-D704
My first player. This one is touted as being a good bang for your buck. If CLV smearing doesn't bother you, or it doesn't show up on your set then I would agree. Unfortunately I am a fan of CRT displays and this player smears like mad on them. This player has a good sharp picture and fairly low noise levels with all of the features you could need out of an LD player.

May I recommend the LaserDisc Wiki?

Also, how would you say the CLD-1010 and CLD-704 compare to one another, PQ-wise?

Hello gumbyandpals,

Firstly I would personally like to say 'Thank you' for spending the time in placing your first hand experienced results of the players that you own or owned.

I am sure that this will help others in some way

As of approximately ''dare I say it'' the end of April 2012 I should have finished paying for my equipment support stands, and then shall install most of my equipment and shall look forward to seeing the results of my LD players.

I still have one more immediate player to pay for and then serviced by Pioneer Japan.

I feel that this will take another year to achieve, as I have enough to do before this happens.

I also need to purchase an AC-3 modification Kit from Duncan in the US for my CLD-97 player, or should I leave it and just have stereo sound?

I say the above because I have enough players with AC-3 out, and so this mod is not essential for me. What do you or others think?

gumbyandpals Thank you again for the time you gave in sharing your valued experiences with others on this site.

Sincere Regards

Cheers, naiaru. At the minute the player section of the wiki is pretty small, but if anyone wants to add to it they'd be more than welcome.

Thanks for the information, gumbyandpals. I was wondering if you could provide a few definitions for terms you've used in your post that I've been wondering about for a while; "CLV smear" and "false outlines." I think I know what you mean but I'm only basing this on the experience of the two players I've used.

I have never compared them side to side, but going off memory I would say that the 1010 has a more noise free picture, less CLV smear (see below for definition), but more false outlines.

Personally I prefer the stereo sound. Both of my main players are AC-3 modded but I tend to listen to the PCM soundtracks more often. But, if you have a good surround setup and you like good channel separation then AC-3 is probably worth the cost.


False outlining shows up as a faint (or sometimes not so faint) outline of an object just to the right of the original. This shows up most clearly on black to white transitions. You'll see a thin line spaced evenly from the edge of the actual object.

CLV smear appears only on CLV discs, hence the name. whenever you have a light colored object with an abrupt transition to a dark area, the light colored area tends to carry over or smear into the dark area. In the picture below, the area to the right of the planet remains a faint lighter color (it's a little hard to see in the pic but very obvious in person). I've heard this is only a problem for CRT sets, I haven't tried out a smearing player on an LCD or Plasma to verify though.

This is different than what a lot of CRTs tend to do which is to have the picture darker just to the right of a bright object. I see that even with DVD/Blu Ray. Don't let your eyes confuse the two.

I always thought the CLV smear was an issue with digital TVs, not CRTs.

Never encountered it on my 37" CRT computer monitor which I've used for my home theater for nigh on 10 years, or on the 32" WEGA that I gave to my parents along with a CLD-D605.

Guess I've been lucky?

Remember when lists are made these are personal preferences. I will now provide some of my opinions and some agree with gumbyandpals and others with me and I'm fine with that. Others have different preferences. What I can say is that you will always find LD-S2, CLD-97, LX-900U, HLD-X0 at the top of lists. The reason I call the 704 the best bang for the buck is that the picture is very sharp and dynamic for the money but I don't use one in my system. I chose the CLD-97 as it is dual sided. I would of had the CLD-R7G at the bottom of the list as I thought it's picture was too harsh.

First - Laserdisc smear - This is more of a power supply issue and where you set the black level, Even the HLD-X0 shows the same amount of smear as the LD-S2. You need to play A Video Standard or Video Essentials and adjust the black level properly. There are also tests in there to test the power supply, if the white vertical line below the white area bends and is not straight then your TV power supply cannot smoothly go from 100% white to complete dark. This is also why some talk about gross smear and other don't see much, it will vary analog TV to TV. If you really look at the HLD-X9 you will see it actually goes deeper than black after the white text in credits. The Panasonic is the better player for this issue, I can agree. But Panasonic is harder to work on and no Panasonic support.

Now on my Pioneer Plasma TV's I do not see any white smear on Pioneer players.

For me the LX-900 video AGC limiting bothers me, you cannot play dark movies and see them dark as the AGC raises the video level. If you buy the Runco or MSB version of this player the Video AGC limited is defeated. For this reason I place this unit lower.

The best player I've seen is the HLD-X0, the natural picture of the X0 and LD-S2 have the same low background noise levels but the X0 is the first player I've seen with the advanced DNR where the picture looks analog still when the DNR is turned on and it makes the picture look like analog noise is even lower. DNR on all others including the HLD-X9 give the background a digitized look.

I do agree the CLD-1010 picture does have a higher level of false images, it is an interesting player.

If it's a power supply issue, why does it only show up on CLV discs? What is fundamentally different about the composite output of a CLV disc versus a CAV disc in terms of how the TV would interpret and display it?

So, you've finally seen first-hand the HLD-X0 in action? There, for many years, it remained elusive to your eyes IIRC.

TLK

Te only difference between CAV and CLV is that CAV does not suffer from crosstalk like CLV LDs due to the one frame per revolution for CAV LDs. There is no difference in how the TV interprets the video. Again my Pioneer Plasma shows Zero smear with Pioneer LD players and I see it with analog TV's. I just don't see the tremendous long smears that others see. I am picky about having the smooth analog look verses the digitized grain in the background. Take your TV, turn up the brightness and the smear will get worse, turn it down and you see less. Contrast can effect things too. I also take a lot of time aligning my players to get the crosstalk at the absolute minimum I can achieve for that player and it will slightly vary player to player.

I can agree that the newer Pioneer players do show more smear, the CLD-D703 thru the LD-S9 but I also would want you to look at the power supply in those players verses the older Pioneer players. Rise and decay times for power supply current are greatly affected by power supply design.

Yes I'm currently working on the servo's of a HLD-X0. It's about 25 lbs heavier than the LD-S2 and has that same great low noise picture the S2 is famous for but has the 3D adaptive filter found in the LD-S9 import. The noise is low enough on the X0 that the DNR is able to remove it and look analog where with the other machines it just give the digital noise reduced look to the video as the source the DNR circuit is working with has a much higher noise level.

That's it. If Kurtis has deemed the X0 the best player he's seen, that's icing on the cake. Not being facetious here. It's saying alot and what most owners of the X0 kinda knew even from doing trial and error comparing other players in their stable.

Hello rhiohki, krbahr,

The HLD X0 shall be the finishing player of my collection and shall look forward to this very much indeed.

Thank you for your comment's guys.

To be honest though, I don't really worry that much about what's best, as I am glad to own the players that I have and to eventually ''by May this year'' will have it all rigged up for use.

Sincere Regards

I'm just one person with my own preference so just take my opinion as an opinion. For dual sided players I want the CLD-97 over all the others. Everyone definitely doesn't agree with that.

The first LD player i owned back in 1998 was the SONY MPD V9K. It was an okay player had auto reverse and AC3 output. At the time i didn't know much about noise reduction etc. Looking back it had loads of noise in the picture. The player didn't incorporate any noise reduction so a lot of the reds turned pink.

Next player was the CLD925. Big improvement in picture player. Provided better colour and sharpness. The HQ circuit button was interesting but just made the picture soft so i always left it off. Picked the player up in early 2000 for about £100. Last a couple of years before it developed cross talk.

A friend of mine imported a Elite CLD-99 for me from the US. I was amazed by the leap in quality from the 925. The colour and detail was far superior. The only problem i had with the player was the rubber on the spindle. it had to be cleaned frequently. The discs kept slipping so when you pressed stop it took forever to stop spinning. We even replaced the spindle but still had issues. Also had errors with the tray. I eventually sold it and picked up a Enlightened Audio Design T-8000. I did a review of the CLD99 for youtube with you can view here
http://youtu.be/PQr9VtMYQqA

The EAD player is a solid machine and built like a tank. Its similar to the CLD97 plus has the AC3 output. I also produced a short review here
http://youtu.be/Qsu8sJvWHsw

ollieh82; This EAD player is an older Pioneer, not the 704 as you mentioned. The CLD-D704 clamp/spindle/pickup would be 100% the same as the CLD-99 as they are the same mechanics. I have not worked on a EAD T-8000 so I cannot say exactly which machine it really is designed after. If you ever get a picture of the inside post it.

Wish this group was around earlier as you could have just replaced the ring on your CLD-99 and cleaned the loading belt and it would have been fine. I could of helped you with getting a spindle motor replacement ring.

I haven't had the Lds1 or s2 but I've had the other units you mentioned. I don't think your correct about the R7G. The actual specs from Pioneer show the R7G to be a little lower than the S9. Opening a unit and seeing parts or a resistor/capacitor in the same location as another unit does not make it equal. The R7G was made in 1998 and most of it was modeled after the prior units such as the XO & X9.

The 3D comb filter, your right, is great, the best of any ld player, but it must be used with S video. You didn't mention the D-ext feature, also on the X9 that has a major impact on contrast issues.

You may be correct, but I was going off of internal design (board placement, power supply, tray mechanism), and board component layout. I don't doubt they made improvements, but it was significantly different from the X9 and 704 (basis for S9) which I have seen on the inside.

Hey Kurtis, the inside of the EAD player looks similar to the CLD 3010 and the CLD97.

gumbyandpals wrote
That's what I'm saying, your going off the board design, placement of parts (ie capac., resis.). A purely visual look of the internals is not the best way to gauge a component . The X0 looks similar to the X9 inside (outside of one side play) but one unit is better than the other even though they look the same inside. The X0 is a better unit because of modified parts.

Yes, the R7G is different then the X9 & 704 internally. Again, looking at the specs it is just short of the S9. The R7G delivers a very vivid picture, and in my opinion, superior to most, if not all, US models. It was Japans entry level approach (for the buyer) into the world of high end laserdisc players. They really didn't pull that many punches with it. It is not a re-badged 600 series as has been tossed around the web by those unfamiliar with the specs. I do appreciate your views on the other units mentioned.