Hello lddb. Caught the bug when a friend unloaded his LD collection to charity. Now I wish I could go back and look through the stuff lol.

I picked up a Panasonic LX-K700 based on a tip I found here, from "rixrex" I believe. His knowledge is obvious from reading his contributions, so I was willing to take his sleeper tip on a good machine for low cost. The sound of the machine is quite good. I'm no audiophile but my a/v setups have always been geared for listening to music rather than for surround. This unit is really nice for regular stereo setups.

Right now it's running on a standard Trinitron. I want to try upscaling the video to component through a WEGA, either via s-video or composite. I have a non-passive Marantz upscaler that will let me try both, plus a line on a free small WEGA to experiment with. Does that seem like a sound plan to improve the picture? Picture quality appears to be the big sticking point of LD...I wouldn't be interested in fighting it too much beyond a decent improvement.

Once I'm happy with a (semi) permanent set up, I can't wait to watch Brassed Off, The Commitments, and animated Spawn. I'm saving those ones for some good loud viewing.

Nice to be here!

good to hear from you.
i have a 2 channel setup and i'm very happy with it.
used to have more speakers but it's just easier to do everything with 2 speakers!
music and movies.

I've had a quadraphonic setup since the very early 80's and now I can't listen to two channel stereo - we hear in full surround and I prefer music and movies in full stereo surround too. It's all just personal preference once the requirements of basic high fidelity are fulfilled.

yes, but for me i couldn't deal with all the setup of speaker distance etc.
also it may change yet again if i don't live in apartments, so i don't have to keep setting up etc.

I'm in an apartment as well. It's an old brownstone so the room sizes and stark acoustics work pretty well with two channel. I would like to try surround and get with the times, but the systems I've heard which I've liked have been beyond my willingness to spend right now. The lower-buck setups I've heard have all been kind of grating to the ear, modern cheap stuff. Dunno why it bothers me. I'm tone-deaf and I'm a carpenter about 1/3 of the way to pure-deaf, so I'm the last guy who should care

I can definitely see how long-term quadrophonic would make surround a necessity!

Audyssey changed all the work for speaker setup and EQ and has produced sound and imaging of a level I didn't know could exist. I really think it's one of the greatest breakthroughs in audio - ever. And it was so easy to set up, just moving the supplied microphone to 8 different positions and then everything was EQ'd, level balanced and the room compensated for automatically by the Audssey computer in my Denon receiver. I was, and still am, astonished at what Audssey can do. And once it's set up, which takes about 20 minutes, you never have to bother with it again unless you change, move or add speakers. It even compensates for various phase shifts due to room reflections and makes speakers image in an almost holographic sense. it's truly amazing.

Is an AC-3 mod feasible for any player? I'd be open to it, unless it would compromise any sound tech under the hood in any way. I don't know if all players sound this good, maybe they do. I've been playing music on it as well while it's sitting out in its temporary state...I'm very impressed, at least from a casual layman view.

It's a tap off the A/V RF signal before filtering and demodulation and in no way affects any of the audio or video circuits. ANY player, even the very first 1978 Magnavox, can be modified for AC-3 RF out.

Cool, thanks man. I noted a member who works on players. I'll contact him when the time's right.

there are 3 that i know of so far.
grasshopper, ldservice and kahbar, i hope i spelled that last one right
so check them for AC-3 if you need it, but remember you will also need to get an AC-3 decoder if your amp
dosen't already have it.

Great, with three guys I can talk to the closest one and minimize the time/risk in transit.

I would prefer a very small integrated amp, so I more than likely would have to use a decoder. But I'll go through the list on the forum and look at the models already equipped. No reason not to give it a chance.