Video Asylum

Posted by Joe Murphy Jr (A) on October 26, 2003 at 09:51:03

In Reply to: Laser Disc?? posted by Estes on October 25, 2003 at 15:31:14:

I own two Pioneer laserdisc players. A Pioneer Elite CLD-97 and a low end CLD-D406 (a non-Elite model for the wife's system). Regardless of what you end up buying, make sure it plays both sides of the disc! Not all laserdisc players have that capability.

If you are interested in quality, get a Pioneer Elite model. Pioneer built the best laserdisc players -- period. Here's what you should look for, in descending order: CLD-97, CLD-99, CLD-79. If you can't find one of these in your good price ballpark, you can also consider the CLD-59 and CLD-704 (a non-Elite model).

You can also search ebay and Audiogon for laserdisc players. Realize that because you can get something cheap doesn't mean it's worth a purchase or that you should buy it. I've seen the CLD-97 around the $600 mark on ebay. The other players obviously go for less.

Joe Kane (JKP, Digital Video Essentials, Video Essentials, A Video Standard and video guru extraordinaire) uses a slightly modified Pioneer Elite CLD-97.