This is something that has sort of interested me. Because when it comes to the subject why LD lost to VHS. We can all agree that the player price did play a large part on it. So that got me curious how much did the absolute cheapest LD player cost.

Personally the cheapest player I know is the Pioneer CLD S310. Which cost 299 pounds brand new. It is PAL only version of the CLD S315, which cost 100 pounds more. But my knowledge on the NTSC only players is quite low. So I'd like to know if there were any cheaper players than that in Asia, Japan or USA.

Cplusplus had made a post on this.....

List of Laserdisc Player MSRPs

If my memory serves me correctly, I think I recall the cheapest machines to be either an LD-870 for about $299 (1989) or the CLD-S104 for maybe $249 (1995). The former was a real dog having only analog sound, a front display with just LED indicators, and no CD playback (hence not having a CLD designator).

Didn't know. I'll check that out.

According to the list it's the s104, which is the american version of the s310. It cost 299 dollars, which is less than 299 pounds. The second cheapest in the list is the Samsung DV530K costing at 349 dollars.

That is correct. I think it was the only Pioneer model with a price that ended with “.99”. Others were even dollar amounts.

It isn’t a good player, in case anyone is wondering...

The S201 was the previous cheapest player. It’s also not great.

The S104 and S201 have kind of a following as they are pure analog players, no digitizing the signal for a TBC or video processing. Some want the pure analog to feed into external processors.

Hey Kurtis,

Wouldn't other "non digital field memory" players such as the CLD-1010, 1030, 1070, 1080, 1090, 2070, 2080, 2090, etc. also qualify on this list of pure analog players?

i found the bulk of my collection of Anime LDs via someone on CRAIGSLIST offering them along with a CLD-S104 for, -what was it?- like $80 or so.

i already had my CLD-3030, and -to me- the S104 fell drastically short on video quality, physical build and overall cosmetics, so off it went.

in hindsight, i probably should have retained it as a spare player, but that was back around -what?- 2009 i believe,
so it's all water very much under the bridge...

And wouldn’t they produce less noise? Way way less noise?

Those still digitize the signal for TBC, plus just digitizing actually performs edge enhancements to give a sharper look but also creates I digital look in the background. Best machine to see this was the Philips CDV-488 which has a button on the front to switch between pure analog or digital picture. Players like the S104 and S201 are pure analog, no digitizing in the machine. The S201 and S104 having no digital processing has a picture as clean as the power supply design and board layout allows. The picture would be softer being pure analog and the color will probably not be as stable being a low end player.

I'm a follower.

CLD-S104 has more of a digital look than the CLD-S201 though, so I prefer the CLD-S201.