Yeah, Sony LD players didn't have very good PQ. Think I read somewhere that the signal-to-noise ratio of Sony players was around 46-48db. The D406 gets 50db I think.

I went from using a Sony MDP-A3 LD player to a squarely average as LD players go, DVL-919 and even the 919 gave a much better picture than the Sony.

Now pretty much defunct - I've got a Pioneer CLD-950 cheaply, will use that until something better comes along. It's single sided play but can handle PAL and NTSC, but annoyingly it won't play early PAL discs with analogue-only sound; I've only got a few so it isn't a disaster, just a nuisance.

You forgot Luxman in your list. It got great reviews on quality of build. It's a beast. Bigger and twice as heavy as any other player I have (Pioneer, Panasonic, Sony, Marantz). Luxman makes $6,000 tube amps and such like. Heavy on the quality.

It has been and always will be Pioneer. They even made laserdisc players until January 14, 2009 when production of laserdisc movies had actually stop in 2001.
There could be other good players made by other manufacturers, but Pioneer was the company that heavily supported the laserdisc format.

Well, make that a CLD-D925! Someone offered one with a load of discs at a price I could afford, I've just braved the horrors of London Transport to collect it. I'm not sure what I'll do with the CLD-950, I don't really have any room or need for multiple players. I'll probably keep it as a spare for a while, and sell it on if things are still going welll with the 925 after a few months.

As I asked in another post, does anyone know which remotes will work with this and let me use all features?

Mine's a Runco. It's not on the poll list.

Might as well put that one down as Panasonic since it's an LX-900u under the hood with some tweaks.

The Lux D-408 player is a Pioneer in disguise : CLD-9000 in Japan and CLD-900 elsewhere.
Also available as : Teac LV-5000DS, Marantz LV-1CD, NAD 5900 and, very very surprisingly, Sony LDP-250CD.

A still-online page from the old version of my ex-website : http://www.thevintageknob.org/VIDEO/CLD900/CLD900.html.

Hi just bought a pioneer 909 put it off for years after reading a lot of negative reviews but more than happy with it has a much better finish than the too plastic looking cld-925 picture seems a little darker though got it off eBay the packaging was terrible the seller might as well have put it in a plastic bag how it survived in transit god only knows

I have a Pioneer DVL-909 European model. Laserdiscplayers can be expensive here in The Netherlands.
Especialy the ones with both side play, pal & ntsc playback and ac-3 out. Payed a good price for it and
came with a great pile of laserdiscs. I really grown fond of this player.

The players i use in my main set up are an pioneer cld-79 and cld-99 very impressed with the cld-79 in comparison with the cld-99.To be honest i can't tell any difference between the two.They both give a sharp picture via s-video but you can get the cld-79 much cheaper so not really sure if the cld-99 is worth the extra money.Now i would like to get an cld-R7G.

Ouch. Glad it made it!

You should be able to open it up and adjust the video level, it's not too hard. Had to do that on one of my players.

Cheers mate I'll give it a try

Panasonic LX-600. It's my first and only laserdisc player, so it's my main one.

Pioneer DVL-919 - Manufactured January 2007 -

My main player is the Pioneer (surprise!!!) CLD 1950 with a back up Pioneer, a CLD 950, in the bedroom. . . . investing in a player that can play both sides might be handy if nothing else

Here is a teaser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eYK8donjpk

Does it actually say "Manufactured January 2007" at the back of the actual player itself? Because I've done a lot of speculating of these 2004 to 2009 manufactured dates of certain models, but I don't think I've heard anyone categorically confirm it with their own players.

Are you having the 3D comb filter in the X0 turned on when you're using the BNC output?

3d comb has no effect or very minimal (I cant see any )on composite output. Crystalio II has its 3D comb enabled.