found this youtube video of a tech-savvy individual making some electronic mods on different boards in a CLD-99:

My Pioneer CLD-99 laserdisc mods (youtube)

Would changes like this really make that much of a difference in performance?

Thank you for finding this and sharing.

I wonder if this will be an official upgrade being provided for those who have this player CLD-99, and how much this will cost to upgrade.

If you find out any other information on this then I would be very grateful.

Sincere Regards

Uhm… (to coin a phrase!)

I can't help but think that, if putting the RFI shields in place causes problems, there's something seriously wrong. Not to mention that everyone on the block is going to be watching whatever he's watching.

Not to mention that changing out capacitors changes frequency response, which is not a good thing when you're dealing with tuned circuits & other sensitive applications. And I can never get over tantalum caps, when I think of all the electronics from the '80s which are dead because they need a thousand of the stupid rotten things replaced.

It seems too much like voodoo electronics to me.

I don't think this is any kind of official upgrade. Just someone with some knowledge of electronics and PCBs trying to make his player better. Kind of like trying to overclock your computer's CPU.

Publius

I figured you'd be best suited for comment on this, but since he's only saying that his player's performance is improved we can't really be sure of it as he hasn't given us any example of it's improved performance. So like you say, right now, it's just "voodoo electronics"

A different point of view about this. Why not just buy the CLD-97 instead. He is spending a lot of time and money trying to lower the noise levels to get that digitized blocky edge out of the picture and this definitely does help but what he can do is limited to the board layouts. Another hugh change is replacing the cheap diodes with fast settling diodes or Hexfreds. I have done this and you would be surprised how the edges get more naturally round and less digital edge blockiness.

I used to modify audio equipment and it definitely can lower the sound floor, add dynamics and spend a lot of time and money and it was fun. Then I would buy a higher end unit and the factory unit sounded better than my modified unit. There is a a limit to how good you can make unit look or sound that is dependent on the care in laying out the signal paths in the printed wiring boards and the power distribution along with the actual power supply.

While the upgrade process will help the 99 a lot I would want to see it next to a CLD-97 when finished as the 97 design and layout is superior. Makes me think if you do the same to the 97 how much better it would look. In today's market the 97 and 99 are basically the same cost, why not just buy a 97. Of course than the LD-S2 layout is even better, separate circuit boards depending on the function it provides.

There are others that have also done this in the past, not the first attempt. All the high end companies that make these Audiophile units add an extra quality power supply that is superior to power the Audio section and keep the original for the video. The LD-S2, CLD-97, HLD-X9, & HLS-X0 all have better power supplies than the CLD-99. The CLD-99 uses the same power supply found in the CLD-D704.

Kurtis, I take it power supplies aren't interchangeable among different players?

You can swap power supplies between certain players such as the 503/703/704 and then the 79/99 if you don't mind soldering the power connections. In the same way many of the 504, 604, 505, 406, 606 are the same design but some are built for different wattage requirements. It's more of the connections and how they fit. Real quality power supplies just take up a lot more room and companies prefer the cheaper switching supplies as they save a lot of room and take less power. But Switching supplies are also more noisy.

Even when you get a better supply you are still limited to the quality of the electronic board layout. If it is a good electronic board then you'll see the advantages of the better power supply, if the electronic board is cheaper then it generates enough noise it will corrupt the power supply.

You can usually always improve but there is just a limit of what can be done with a design. I found this out in the 80's modifying Philips TDA series 16-bit DAC's.

Now how much noise will these sorts of mods really cut out from the picture/audio?

I have a genuine Video modification for my DVL-909, and as soon as I have available funds for this and a full service to the player I will get this done.

I have mentioed this to the engineer and he said that he would genuinely consider carrying out this MOD to the Player.

I shall keep this site informed of the results as and when they arrive.

Regards to all

Generally you are trying to do two things, use better capacitors to quiet down the background noise on the boards which will make the picture smoother and better capacitors and resistors in the signal path as cheaper parts can act like low-pass filters. Yes this does help but how much better depends on how much it is possible to reduce noise do to the PWB layout. You cannot give definite answers for these experiments. From my experience you cannot make a cheap board layout look as good as a board lay'd out with extreme care. Cheap boards do not have as good signal path isolation so you have to go crazy with capacitors to attempt to control this. Even the good layouts use proper capacitors but the design allows them to work.

The mod I would like to see is one mentioned on AVS Forum quite a while back, which I was never able to get details on. Namely, tapping the digital timebase corrector & leading out a composite serial digital (D2 type) signal. There are various pieces of equipment which were built to handle this format of digital signal, although it's obsolete these days.

I was watching that one too, was disappointed it ended.

In case anyone's interested, the Youtuber who did the CLD-99 mod has posted some test videos.

Test Setup

Bandwidth/Resolution Test

Resolution Test

Luma Linearity Test

Color Test

Since I've never used any test equipment of this type, this all doesn't really do much for me. So I'm waiting for him to actually show us some practical demos so we can see the mods in action.

OK, now that I've seen that, I'm more ready to admit that he's got something there. That kind of measurement does mean something to me.

In other news, we have some new information on the composite digital modification. Apparently it was actually for a parallel digital output, which I didn't get at first.

Parallel? Hmmmm . . . that's different. When you first brougth the subject up I thought you were referring to an SDI type connection coming out from the TBC circuit.

If it were to be parallel, what type of connection would it be?

My impression is it's an 8-bit parallel connexion coming off the TBC. I guess the fellow had some kind of equipment that supported such a thing. I think there was some broadcast equipment that did. Really, his post has all the information disclosed so far.

I watched these and interesting that especially with the chroma test he needs to get his unmodified player professionally calibrated.

The chroma is not properly adjusted, he even admits this so you need to fix the stock CLD-99. I can tell you that if you increase the level to be proper it will reduce the effect of the noise. I cannot consider any test for this until he understands a person (good day/bad day/anxious to go home) at Pioneer originally adjusted this and I cannot tell you how many players that still have factory settings I've adjusted and the owners cannot believe how much better the player looks after a proper calibration. I have a Vector-Scope, an unmodified player looks a lot like his modified player.

For the luminance pictures, the point I have been making is that I'm seeing the same level of line shaking between the players. This would mean that the background noise has not been improved. I can also tell you that by spec Pioneer wants the bandwidth pulses to gradually reduce in size as the move to higher frequencies. In the CLD-97 you can adjust the frequency response to boost or decrease the levels.

I still want to see the modified player against a CLD-97 or LD-S2 that has been adjusted properly. From what I've seen, yes the modified CLD-99 will have a sharper picture but what about the visible noise? I'll bet it is the same or higher.

I do think he will have a better player when finished than a stock CLD-99. He will have fun doing it just as I did back in the 80's and 90's. You just cannot make an average circuit layout look as good as quality circuit layout whether Audio or Video.

The output from the comb filter/DNR/TBC IC is parallel in the LD players, 8-bit as mentioned. Wish I knew if that looked any better than the analog outputs.

I uploaded a frequency response from a LD-S2. Didn't know the quality would be so poor until I saw it on my laptop, sorry. But look at how there is not all the shakiness or jitter in the signal, just compare to either CLD-99 the other person is working on. I can take a better quality video if necessary.

Very nice. What's the disc you're playing?