Hi all!

I posted a little bit in the newbie thread about buying a CLD-2950, which I ended up doing. It's got two main problems thus far...

1. The seller said it was fully working until I asked him to send me video of it in action, at which point he suddenly said the remote control wasn't working so he'd knock 50 quid off. I found that frustrating but acceptable, partly because I reckoned there was a reasonably chance I could fix the remote because there's a good chance it's battery leak. He insisted that he'd taken the batteries out before storage, but sure enough, I found a crapload of corrosion all over the contacts and then when I took the remote apart there was green corrosion all over the internal board and contacts as well. I managed to clean it reasonably well and got it working disassembled, but when I reassembled the remote again the rather dried up and corroded solder join on one of the terminals ripped off the board and it stopped working again. I'm probably going to attempt to create a new "pad" by very carefully scratching off a bit of the PCB to access the conductive material beneath and then soldering a small piece of wire between that and the battery terminal (I've done similar when repairing and modding Sega Mega Drive consoles in the past but it's nerve-wracking stuff so I'm absolutely not looking forward to it, and it might just tear off again when I push the contacts back through the plastic of the control, as happened with the original dried up pad).

2. Something like 25% of the time, it can't load the disc, and instead makes a worrying mechanical whining noise then ejects the disc. So far, it has always worked when I put the disc back in again, and it seems this is a relatively common problem that may be down to a worn out belt (which is another thing I've fixed on a Sega machine before, the original Mega CD) so I have ordered a couple of spare belts in the hope that it might do the trick. But it might be something else, possibly worse, and it has been nervous about the player failing outright.


Partly as a result of this, I'm considering picking up a second player. I have my eye on two contenders: a CLD-1750 and a US CLD-99 Elite.

As far as I can tell, here's the basic rundown of stuff that I'm interested in (note that my primary concern is audio performance, but it would be nice to have nice NTSC playback as well):


CLD-2950 & CLD-1750

Both of these apparently have pretty good playback for both PAL and NTSC (and true NTSC as opposed to PAL60). Both have remotes but my 2950 one is borked and may not necessarily survive a repair attempt. I'm honestly struggling to see much of a difference between the 1750 and 2950 apart from the fact that the 2950 came out later (and I've heard anecdotally that older players generally have better analogue audio performance, but these may be comparable for all I know).


CLD-99 Elite

Theoretically better NTSC performance but no PAL playback whatsoever, so I'd still be relying on my CLD-2950 for that. Admittedly, I'm not massively concerned about PAL as I think the majority of my collection so far is NTSC and that's likely to remain the case moving forward, for the most part. Probably the biggest downside to this one is cost: it's ridiculously expensive imo at £450. That's £50 more than I already paid for the 2950, which appears to be in better cosmetic condition at the very least and came with 127 LaserDiscs as well! (Also, the seller completely blanked me when I messaged them asking for a bit of info about how they intended to pack the item, whereas I've just heard from the CLD-1750 seller who appears to be friendly.) I know the Elite has AC-3, unlike the other two, but this is also not something I'm currently especially worried about seeing as modulators appear to be like gold-dust these days and I'm not made of money!


Are all three of these players basically equivalent for the most part for my purposes (good NTSC playback with high quality digital and analogue audio)? Or is any of the three e.g. the CLD-99 likely to be significantly better in any way?

Ta

without pics its hard to say.
get some thin wire to make jumpers and solder to fix the remote, if the pad is truly bad then you will have to figure a new repair or new remote.
most can be had for 10 bucks and most are all compatible.

as for the noise, sounds like it may be slipping on the pad???
I've been having some issues with all my players recently and need to open and clean the pads so the disc won't slip.
thats my guess on the player.

I think I'm going to open it and have a look but having found a video of somebody with one that apparently has a worn out belt, that one makes the exact same noise. Also, it only seems to happen with LDs; CDs are fine. I guess the extra weight of an LD occasionally causes a problem but CDs are light enough that it works fine.

Any thoughts on the players I mentioned, at all? Considering grabbing the 1750 as a backup in case this one craps its pants, but it may be more prudent to go for the CLD-99 Elite if it's a significantly superior player in some important way (obviously subjective). The price diff is massive though and I suspect it may not be worth the jump, but I don't have enough experience with these players to really have any instinct for these things yet.

Yes could be the belt also, not sure but that goes bad too.

As for players it will depend on what you are looking for, I don't know much about those players from being to early for my brain right now.
Can't remember if you wanted pal ntsc combos either?

Working is the most important.

Hahah, no worries. Given my location, PAL discs are easier to come by, so the combo is nice, but then I've already got the CLD-2950 for that... it might make sense to just make sure I have the best NTSC player I can reasonably manage, but when you're talking basically double the money I'm not sure if that's sensible.

And yeah, "working is the most important"... indeed that is what I'm finding to be the key thing. So far I've had 2 players, 1 completely knackered in transit, the other working but with the aforementioned caveat (I'm hoping just the belt and I'll fix that if so). Annoys me that he's wrecked the remote with battery acid. because it's in great condition externally!

I did do some research, mostly on the LD archive but also a bit elsewhere. I hear the Elite range is generally the one to beat unless you go to Japanese models like the X0 but I think the CLD-99 came out around the same kinda time as the CLD-2950 and I'm wondering if it may not necessarily be a million miles away from the CLD-2950 or CLD-1750 apart from stuff like AC-3 output and fancier design aesthetics. Feels like a probably unnecessary luxury but I'm concerned about dropping cash on a CLD-1750 then wanting the CLD-99 Elite later for some reason or another. And of course this may all be moot if either one arrives damaged...

CLD-1750 < CLD-2950 < CLD-99

The jump from the CLD-1750 to the CLD-2950 is much larger than the hop from the CLD-2950 to the CLD-99. If the CLD-2950 +PAL version of the CLD-D703, you would only gain AC-3 RF out and better S-Video.

I think the CLD-1750 is single-side so keep that in mind.

The image of the 99 blows away the others. However it’s also less reliable.

Buy all three and learn to fix stuff. That is the ONLY way you’ll be a happy LD user. If that scares you, give up now.

Im not in PAL land but it seems like even in the UK half the discs are NTSC. As an American I’ve imported half my collection but never had any interest in PAL LD except for some music titles that have all rotted. IMHO PAL LD is %99.99 worthless.

Its also odd that less have any value compared to US discs, seems like a very small amount, or less than small

I'm not made of money, man! Hahah!

But yeah, the "fixing stuff" is absolutely my bag. Already it looks like I'm going to be soldering this remote back into working order, for starters. I've already repaired and/or modded multiple Sega Mega Drive / Mega CD and Nintendo consoles, so I have at least a little bit of experience with this kind of thing, though I'm hardly a master with a soldering iron.

The trouble is I don't have £1k just lying around to drop on the CLD-99 *and* a CLD-1750. The single-sidedness of the CLD-1750 does appeal because it presumably means one less mechanical thing that can fail, and I'm not bothered about having to manually change the side frankly. But that CLD-99 Elite does look mighty nice...

Additionally they can have more alignment issues. I just got a DVL-91 where side A was good but side B was way off.

If you go the CLD-99 route, make sure it comes with the correct remote: CU-CLD117.

How much is the CLD-1750?

Too much for my wallet, but it's done now... still, certainly less than £450.

I basically decided that owning an older single-sider was probably valuable to me at this stage than spending a lot more money than I can afford on a CLD-99 that I may not necessarily benefit me significantly more than the CLD-2950 I have already (especially if the intermittent loading issue does turn out to be an easily fixable belt replacement). And to help further, I found a CLD-2950 remote on eBay under the wrong model number (they missed a character, so I didn't find it when I was searching before). Ordered that regardless, since it probably can't hurt to have a spare even if I do fix the one I have.

I also suspect that the CLD-1750, which appears to be somewhat tank-like due to when it was built, may have a better change of surviving the journey than the somewhat fancier but possibly more delicate CLD-99.

I've got to say I love the single sided players, but also love the double sided players.

It all depends on what you can afford.

You just have to understand that there is a very limited amount of parts, I recently fixed a remote for my CD player, bought some parts the springs and flat tabs
for the batteries and soldered them, it was a buck for 10 pieces.

So you can spend thousands but when there are no parts you are SOL.

This is pretty much exactly why I haven't yet pulled the trigger on the CLD-99.

I already had one player arrive wrecked (a CLD-D925) so I'm in no hurry to buy another, even more expensive one that has a similar side change mechanism made from similar plastic and is therefore probably similarly likely to break en route. The CLD-1750 seems like a nice alternative and it's significantly cheaper, in addition to the other reasons mentioned above. So yeah, we'll see how it goes.

If I were you I'd go for the cheaper CLD-1750 rather than the CLD-99. You already have a great player in the CLD-2950. I own both the 1750 and 2950 and the former holds up well. As you said, the fact it's single sided is actually appealing in some ways because there's less that can go wrong.

Side note, but holy s**t I had no idea LD players were so expensive these days 0_O

I already did, yep.


Cool. Yep!


Yyyyyyyep...

This pretty much sums it up for me.

When you get the CLD-1750 make sure it will play a CD if it was sold as being fully functional.

Is this a thing the CLD-1750 is likely to stop being able to do for some reason?

Has to do with centering, if it can't play a CD then centering is off.
Unless there is something else I forgot or don't know of.

It seems like it might be a common issue in these late 80's early 90's single-sided units. It could just be bad luck, but I've had at least 3 that would not play CDs. A CLD-M(something), CLD-V2400, and either a CLD-1070 or 1080. I also will see them for sale saying the same thing.

If I see any crosstalk and it will not play a CD, I adjust the pickup inclination (which is usually really off) and that can fix it. If not, you have to look at centering which is not fun to adjust- even with an oscilliscope.

CLD-1750 arrived, and does indeed appear to play a CD, and an LD.

Big problem though: the digital S/PDIF (TOSLINK) output is borked. Can't plug a cable in, only goes so far then stops dead. It looks like the port is somehow out of alignment and/or blocked inside the case, so I'm trying to plug a cable into what appears to be a metal plate...

So outta 3 players I've had one arrive smashed to bits, one "fully working" that randomly ejects discs half the time, and another "fully working" that has a non-functional digital output.