i just bought my first somewhat decent player, a Pioneer CLD-2090 and i'm baffled by some of the issues i'm encountering. the player was purchased on ebay, shipped a very short distance (maybe 30 miles in all?) and had the transit screw in place and right out of the box, digital audio tracks were distorted and stuttering. some research online told me that the problem could be fixed by adjusting the RF pot inside, which i did. unfortunately, i also felt the compelling need to mess with the tilt balance (there were some issues getting the RF set correctly) but moved it back EXACTLY where it was when it seemed like it wasn't doing any good or worse. with enough adjustment to the RF, the audio cleared up and then i realized the player wouldn't switch to digital tracks anymore. even setting everything back to how it was out of box, i'm still getting no digital audio. what could be the cause of this? not sure if this is worth mentioning, but CDs play fine, video is great and analog audio is working perfectly. it just WILL NOT switch to a digital track and obviously isn't reading the audio data on the disc.

Sorry for what may seem ridiculous questions, but we can't overlook anything:
1. Are you using the remote to switch between analog and digital tracks?
2. Are you sure the LD you're testing with has digital audio?
3. Which audio connection are you using (RCA or optical)?

The distortion on the digital tracks might have been due to laserrot. Sometimes it only affects the pcm tracks but the video and analog are fine.

1 & 2. yes. the test disc i'm using (http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/08863/9-3 ... orse:-Weld) has both audio tracks and was playing the digital track when i first hooked up the machine, just stuttering badly with a layer of distortion over it. analog played fine. now it wont see a digital track on the disc at all (analog still plays fine).
3. RCA



that would make sense, but i didn't see any signs of rot and it wouldn't explain why the digital tracks DID play back at first and then no longer exist after my admittedly ill advised tinkering.

strangely, i put it another disc last night that came with the player (Speed, specifically. ugh) and it read the digital track on the disc with garbled, distorted output. this is so far the only disc i can get a digital track to even appear on.

It is a long stretch but the entire lot might be suspect of rot. Some years ago, I bought a lot of about 40 discs, nearly all were rotters. I think the guy must have stored them in the basement in moist/humid and extremely high and low temperatures. In Mass we get -12F in winter and nearly 100 in summer.

It's not very common for a player to play CDs fine and have trouble with LD digital audio.

Did you adjust the RF slowly little by little to get where you're at? Did you try turning both directions from where you started to see if one way improves and one makes it worse?

extremely slowly, both directions. at this point, the analog audio just gets worse going too far either way. digital audio doesn't start reading again adjusting in either direction.

Inside the player the RF from the pickup is split and one path is to the digital audio circuitry and the other is to the video circuitry. The player does switch using the Digital Audio for syncing the rotation speed tracking when playing a CD. When playing a LD the player switches to syncing the video to control the rotation speed and tracking. So the issue is the quality of the LD or issues with the player syncing to the video.

Now; I hope you completely removed the side changing mechanism locking screw (or transit screw, this only locks the turn mechanism so it won't be forced out of side A position during shipping and has nothing to do with holding the laser pickup) as if you left it hanging back far enough the side change mechanism works but did not remove it or left it in the screw plays with the AC/DC ground plains and you can loose digital sound. If the screw is removed you initially turned the RF level the wrong direction. You will loose the digital audio and still get analog video and sound until you turn in down lower to loose video sync.

I feel it is a bad LD or you switched to another LD that does not have a digital track, remember the format originally just had analog audio (cannot remember if the format was actually released to the public in the 60's or 70's) and in the 90's digital audio was added. I do not think this is an adjustment inside. You need a known good LD to test with.