What is by far the BEST Laser Disc Player ever? (2 Viewers)

I'm in the market for several Laser Disc players. One being the McIntosh MLD-7020.

I am also wanting the best ever produced Laser Disc Player, bar none.

I have heard the likes of a Panasonic player, Pioneer Elite (which the MLD above is a hybrid of I understand) and just trying to determine what would be the ideal piece that stands above all others? A center piece of brilliant technology.

Thanks

LD-Crazer said:

I'm in the market for several Laser Disc players. One being the McIntosh MLD-7020.

I am also wanting the best ever produced Laser Disc Player, bar none.

I have heard the likes of a Panasonic player, Pioneer Elite (which the MLD above is a hybrid of I understand) and just trying to determine what would be the ideal piece that stands above all others? A center piece of brilliant technology.

Thanks

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When I lived in Northern VA and Kurtis Bahr serviced my players I told him I was looking at the MDL-7020. He got one for service (and was excited about it) and called me. It is a Pioneer CLD-97 with an AC-3 out and a McIntosh faceplate. I'd opt for one of Kurtis' tweaked CLD-97s. Probably less money too.

I had Kurtis over my place at one point when I was deciding how far to move up the chain as I don't have tons of LDs. I have now (although not used in some time) a CLD-79 and a Pioneer 704 (which are basically the same machine and that's why I got them). At my place I had a scaler (Proceed PMDT with the PVP card) and we were able to view things in different ways on my 100 inch screen. We used 'The Phantom Menace' LD mostly for comparison (it was many years back). He had a tweaked CLD-97 over my place along with his Japanese imported HLD-X9. The HLD-X9 was the best. The tweaked CLD-97 was second and not far behind that (and this was on a 100 inch screen) were the CLD-99 and the Pioneer Elite CLD-79 and Pioneer 704. The CLD-59 was behind those and I had a 406 at one point and that was behind the CLD-59. If I was to buy one (not considering I only have about 135 LDs, I'd get the tweaked CLD-97. Considering the number of LDs I opted to get the 704 as my back up player (I traded him my CLD-59 plus cash) and get some extra parts. The 704 was in my basement at the time and I probably played less than 10 discs on it, which really was the plan as if I had gotten into it more (don't really have the storage now in FL with no basement), between the 2 players and parts I wouldn't have trouble keeping a working player for a very long time.

A large number of arguments were started over the years about Best of the Best, but the US players virtually never won the battle.

Kurtis could tweak the 97 (or it's clones) within an inch of it's life and it would look really good -- if I remember he liked the less digital picture quality of those 2 over the 99 level players., but I think anytime things got serious the discussion almost always came back to the Japanese players with
HLD-X0 and HLD-X9 being top dogs. CLD-R7G and LD-S9 were in the discussion and I only saw a few direct comparisons reviews of those 2 with the 7 generally coming out on top.
The S9 had a lot of "white smear" that nobody ever seemed to figure out the cause and also affected the 99 much more so than the 97
The X0 vs X9 was a different argument with red lasers, MUSE capability -- single sided, bigger, beefier X0 vs a double sided X9. The X0 was more expensive, the best S/N ratio ever measured and supposedly better color rendering,
but the X9 may have been close enough and autoreverse even though slow was still an advantage. In absolute hands down, best situation pure picture quality teh X0 always seemed to come out on top.

For Us players and less than $2000-3000 -- the LDs2 and CLD97 seemed to be the favorites. Maybe a hair softer picture, but felt to be more film-like than the sharpness that the 99 player had.

And Phil -- I hope I wasn't the one who sold you the CLD79. I always hated shipping LaserDisc players and I don't think I ever bought one other than the one's Kurtis sent that didn't arrive damaged.
I sold mine when I upgraded to a player Kurtis sold me the . I ended up buying a couple of 704 and a mitsubishi clone and Kurtis had to fix every one of them.

David Norman said:

A large number of arguments were started over the years about Best of the Best, but the US players virtually never won the battle.

Kurtis could tweak the 97 (or it's clones) within an inch of it's life and it would look really good -- if I remember he liked the less digital picture quality of those 2 over the 99 level players., but I think anytime things got serious the discussion almost always came back to the Japanese players with
HLD-X0 and HLD-X9 being top dogs. CLD-R7G and LD-S9 were in the discussion and I only saw a few direct comparisons reviews of those 2 with the 7 generally coming out on top.
The S9 had a lot of "white smear" that nobody ever seemed to figure out the cause and also affected the 99 much more so than the 97
The X0 vs X9 was a different argument with red lasers, MUSE capability -- single sided, bigger, beefier X0 vs a double sided X9. The X0 was more expensive, the best S/N ratio ever measured and supposedly better color rendering,
but the X9 may have been close enough and autoreverse even though slow was still an advantage. In absolute hands down, best situation pure picture quality teh X0 always seemed to come out on top.

For Us players and less than $2000-3000 -- the LDs2 and CLD97 seemed to be the favorites. Maybe a hair softer picture, but felt to be more film-like than the sharpness that the 99 player had.

And Phil -- I hope I wasn't the one who sold you the CLD79. I always hated shipping LaserDisc players and I don't think I ever bought one other than the one's Kurtis sent that didn't arrive damaged.
I sold mine when I upgraded to a player Kurtis sold me the . I ended up buying a couple of 704 and a mitsubishi clone and Kurtis had to fix every one of them.

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No David you did not sell it to me. It was many moons ago on SleezE-bay. The guy lived around Atlantic City, NJ. Besides packing the thing like crap and avoiding the in person inquires attempted by his own shipping agent (it was a hardware store that was part of a national chain and I spoke to them and they told me he would hide when they came to the door - the HQ of the hardware company eventually paid for repair) he advertised a free RF demodulator, neglecting to mention that it was a Parasound without power and proprietary and would only work with the particular Parasound preamp and otherwise it was a doorstop (I probably have it in a bin in the garage).


The 704 which is essentially a CLD-79 is a great choice (that's why I bought my 704 from Kurtis after he came over - I put it in the secondary basement system of the old place as back-up and probably didn't he play 10 discs on it). I think the main advantage of a CLD-99 over the 79 was the comb filter in the S-Video out and after a few years the filters where better in TVs anyway. Before 'The Phantom Menace' was available on DVD, a manager of a local audio chain asked me to bring it in with an RF demodulator (I have the Yamaha and the Lexicon) and some digital cables so he could do a 7.1 demo at a seminar. The manager brought in his CLD-99, which to me, did not really look better (that I could notice) than the CLD-79/704 which I had hooked to several TVs over the years.


I agree with you 100% about shipping players and that's what I told Michael in a PM. I have not played a LD in probably over 5 years (and have some nice titles). I personally moved the players when I retired (for the 2nd time) and moved to FL a couple of years back. Since I have so much audio stuff, I shipped some things to myself via Fedex but not something like the LD players. The tweaked CLD-97 was double the price back then (probably 10 or so years back) and as noted I only own so many discs and it was hard to justify. I may drag out an LD to play at some point if I don't run across a local buyer. I have the LDs in a closet and most of them in nice racks.

Phil A said:

I have the LDs in a closet and most of them in nice racks.

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A couple times a year I'll pull out a disc just to run them through the player. I still have it hooked up to an Pioneer Elite Pro-96 Rear Projector
that I just can't seem to get rid of. I think I have the JBL Rf demod which think is a clone of the elite Pioneer demod.

Back of the HT room is closet with most of my DVD and LD and LP and CD. BD are in the HT room.
Couple hundred Criterion, my proud papa full DTS collection, a whole host of different Star Wars releases including several Japanese titles.
A bunch of the Major Boxsets including the Disney's that were works of art even without the discs. I think I collected the whole Universal Signature line as well.

I keep saying I'm going to take one out (but have not). I have the Star Wars faces individual discs with the original movies and from memory some Japanese DTS discs (I think the Die Hard trilogy) and some other nice ones. My favorite sound quality wise (I like The Phantom Menace too) is Firestorm a 1998 film starring Howie Long (yes the football player/ NFL analyst). It is in DTS and really is dynamic at the sound climax of the film.

I have the 704 but was VERY disappointed with it- the smear problem on it just killed it for me. I took it out and put my previous player (CLD-D606) back in.

I had both the CLD-99 and CLD-97. I loved both for slightly different reasons; but the CLD-99's handling of CAV discs is still something I sometimes miss. I had discs and discs of Disney Special editions with CAV bonus discs full of slides/etc. and you knew each pause was absolutely perfect.. now, Blurays do a great pause, but not really quite like CAV.. even though they are higher quality.


Just an oddity that isn't because of any lack in the new format, more a lack of interest in using the new format in that way

Jesse Skeen said:

I have the 704 but was VERY disappointed with it- the smear problem on it just killed it for me. I took it out and put my previous player (CLD-D606) back in.

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I'm not sure what you mean by "smear problem". Did you have the Digital Noise Reduction on? I rarely used the V-DNR, because even on my old Toshiba 35" CRT, I could really see motion artifacts very much like a smeary delay, even on a low setting. I liked the straight image offered up by the 704 better than any of the other laserdisc players I had, including a 1997 entry-level Pioneer that I had as a second option, though I hardly used it because it just didn't produce a comparable image to the 704.

David Norman said:

In absolute hands down, best situation pure picture quality teh X0 always seemed to come out on top.

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Yep.


http://retroaudiovisualgear.blogspot.ca/2013/06/pioneer-hld-x0.html
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/18-dvd-players-standard-def/1073498-pioneer-hld-x0-vs-hld-x9-ntsc-lds.html#post14833867
http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/how-much-for-pioneer-hld-x0-worlds-best-ld-player.335543/

Jesse Skeen said:

I have the 704 but was VERY disappointed with it- the smear problem on it just killed it for me. I took it out and put my previous player (CLD-D606) back in.

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When I had Kurtis Bahr over or was over his place a few times, it seemed (to me) that the smear problem was not consistent with the same model machine all the time. As noted above, the DNR can cause or exacerbate problems. I believe Kurtis turns it off in his CLD-97 tweak. I owned a 406 (started with that) and then a CLD-59. When I had Kurtis over to compare the players on the 100 inch screen, I traded the 59 and cash for the 704 to have a back-up player that used many of the same parts as the CLD-79. This is one of many resources that gives some reference to quality among LD players - http://moesrealm.com/home-theater/guides/laserdisc-guide/ and here is another - http://www.laserdiscarchive.co.uk/

I kept all the noise-reduction and anything else that messed with the picture turned completely off, but could not get rid of that smearing- I had it hooked to an HDTV upconverted to 1080p through my Pioneer receiver. I watched one movie that had one side in CAV with the rest in CLV, and the CAV side was smear-free and I noticed the smears come back right away when the next CLV side started. I watched the same movie on the other player and no smears at all on that one. The 704's been talked about like it's one of the best players out there, but I just couldn't tolerate the smearing. I still have the player just on the off-chance that it might behave better on a different TV in the future.

Were you using the S-video output or the composite video output?

Jesse Skeen said:

I kept all the noise-reduction and anything else that messed with the picture turned completely off, but could not get rid of that smearing- I had it hooked to an HDTV upconverted to 1080p through my Pioneer receiver. I watched one movie that had one side in CAV with the rest in CLV, and the CAV side was smear-free and I noticed the smears come back right away when the next CLV side started. I watched the same movie on the other player and no smears at all on that one. The 704's been talked about like it's one of the best players out there, but I just couldn't tolerate the smearing. I still have the player just on the off-chance that it might behave better on a different TV in the future.

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As I noted, I've seen the same model have or not have smearing. Don't know why, if it is any adjustment or some other factor. I haven't played either of my players in a bit, including the 704, but never noticed smearing. I got the 704 from Kurtis Bahr as a back-up years back and probably have not played 10 discs on it since then as it sat in a secondary system.

Jesse Skeen said:

I kept all the noise-reduction and anything else that messed with the picture turned completely off, but could not get rid of that smearing- I had it hooked to an HDTV upconverted to 1080p through my Pioneer receiver. I watched one movie that had one side in CAV with the rest in CLV, and the CAV side was smear-free and I noticed the smears come back right away when the next CLV side started. I watched the same movie on the other player and no smears at all on that one. The 704's been talked about like it's one of the best players out there, but I just couldn't tolerate the smearing. I still have the player just on the off-chance that it might behave better on a different TV in the future.

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It may be an issue with the set, not the player. Some TVs have non-defeatable noise reduction engaged on all analogue inputs.

The smear issue (white dots would look like comets with a tail) was one of those things that never got a clear answer as to what caused it. I don't think Kurtis or Duncan ever figured out the exact cause or at least i don't remember the Eureka moment of what caused it and how it could be fixed though it could be decreased with tinkering. Pioneer seemed to most prone to it (of course Pioneer was almost a Monopoly for years) compared to the few Sony and Panasonic players that existed. Certain models were worse and it wasn't a price dependent issue. The 99 and 704 were worse than some of the older models, the 97 had very little of it, the LD-S9 ($2000-2500) was notorious for it, the 7G had very little. I don't think the Red Laser Big Boys had any issues at all with it.


Certain individual models and TVs seem to exagerrate the effect

I never really noticed much issue with smearing. When I used to watch LDs, it would be on the 100 inch screen with my CLD-79 and a Sharp 9000 Projector and a little later on a BenQ W5000 (and I probably didn't watch many on that projector). My 704 LD player was in the basement (of the old house) and I probably didn't watch 10 discs on it, mostly on an old Sharp 64 inch rear projector and perhaps I watched a disc or two on a Sony VPL AW15 720p projector (and that was probably the last time I watched a LD). When I did go over to Kurtis' place he did do a demo of the smearing. I don't have any clue what causes it but I have seen the same model players (not on the same TV though) and some seem to have it and some don't.

Jesse Skeen said:

I kept all the noise-reduction and anything else that messed with the picture turned completely off, but could not get rid of that smearing- I had it hooked to an HDTV upconverted to 1080p through my Pioneer receiver. I watched one movie that had one side in CAV with the rest in CLV, and the CAV side was smear-free and I noticed the smears come back right away when the next CLV side started. I watched the same movie on the other player and no smears at all on that one. The 704's been talked about like it's one of the best players out there, but I just couldn't tolerate the smearing. I still have the player just on the off-chance that it might behave better on a different TV in the future.

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Sadly, I’ve found that AV receivers are a bad choice for upscaling.

(Replying 3 years later) Nevertheless, they have worked well for me and I haven’t seen smearing that bad on any other players.