Pioneer CLD-97 Laserdisc player
The new flagship of Pioneer's line of combination laserdisc and CD players is the CLD-97, a member of the company's Elite series of high-performance components. And though mild-mannered in appearance, it boasts a wealth of performance and convenience features.
Included are the usual cueing controls plus all the extras you would expect from a high-end player-more than we have space to describe in detail. Suffice it to say that the CLD-97 leaves out nothing useful except the ability to cue to, or display, CD index points (a common omission, and a minor one given the scarcity of indexed CD's nowadays).
Among the most important features is a field memory that gives long-play (CLV) videodiscs nearly all the special playback features that would otherwise be available only with standard-play (CAV) discs - freeze frame, multispeed forward or backward playback, strobing, and so forth. If you find these capabilities useful, this feature alone could save you hundreds of dollars in disc purchases, since you can buy the less expensive CLV versions of your favorite movies and still do detailed frame-by-frame analysis. The only CAV tricks not available with CLV discs are those related to cueing by frame number or by absolute time (because CLV discs don't carry the information necessary to do them).
Besides automatic videodisc side-changing, other important features include twenty-four-selection programmed playback capability, eight repeat modes (memory, A/B, single chapter/track, one side, both sides, program, random, and program random), and an automatic track-editing function that programs tracks that will fit within a specified playback time (handy for making cassette copies of CD's, for example). The CLD-97 also has a feature called Hi-Lite Scan, which, in its standard operating mode, plays 8 seconds of each track on a CD, presumably so that you can select those you want to hear. Strangely, playback is begun one minute into each track. The starting point can be reset to any location within a track, however, even the most logical one: the beginning. The standard mode for the equivalent laserdisc feature does start at the beginning of each chapter, and this cannot be changed.
Hookup is simple. Two identical sets of audio/video outputs are provided. The phono-jack audio outputs are at the far right of the back panel, while the two composite-video (phono-jack) and S-video outputs are at the left side. Pioneer generously provides both an optical digital audio output connector and a coaxial (phono-jack) digital output. The latter is becoming increasingly rare for reasons unrelated to its versatility, so Pioneer deserves credit for putting in the extra circuitry. There is no headphone output.
Like other members of Pioneer's Elite line, the CLD-97 is finished in a lacquer-like glossy black with polished wood end panels. Its vacuum-fluorescent display can be switched off with a small front-panel button, which in turn illuminates a tiny green LED. The display is functional but rather small, with the track-number and time digits crowded close together and no indication of when the player is in pause mode.
The supplied remote handset operates all the player's functions (the front-panel controls allow only the most basic cueing operations). It has a jog-dial/shuttle-ring combination, which is useful for controlling both laserdisc and CD playback. Unfortunately, Pioneer still includes a pointless, inconvenient, and battery-consuming illuminated on/off button for the jog dial. At the same time, the company has abandoned the logical 0 to 9 numerical keypad found on earlier models and replaced it with one of those frustrating systems that require you to press a +10 button to get to tracks numbered higher than 9. It makes even less sense when you discover that the +10 button is inoperative if you cue directly to a track time or frame number, which means that the CLD-97 interprets the same keypad in two different ways depending on the cueing function being performed. Those blemishes aside, it's a mostly well-arranged remote.
Along with batteries for the remote control, the supplied accessories include a stereo audio cable, a composite-video cable, and-wonder of wonders!-an S-video cord. (Many components with S-video outputs are not supplied with the necessary cables.) I would have been doubly thrilled if a cable for the optical digital output had been included as well (they're even rarer than S-video cables).
Technically, the CLD-97 has a lot going for it. The manual says that a good deal of the video signal processing is performed digitally, with consequent benefits in phase performance (which in video translates to color accuracy). Audio performance is enhanced by 1-bit digital-to-analog (D/A) converters. But incorporated in them is a feature that is sure to excite controversy-a technique Pioneer calls Legato Link Conversion.
Leaving aside the questions raised by Legato Link, the CLD-97's D/A converters were generally excellent. Low-level linearity was essentially perfect down to - 80 dB and exceeded a 1-dB error way down at -102 dB. Our other audio measurements were equally impressive. Frequency response with de-emphasis, in particular, was very good, and noise was extremely low. Using a special dither-only test signal to keep the converters from muting, we found just a tiny amount of hum at a totally inaudible - 104.7 dB. FM-audio performance for videodiscs without digital soundtracks was par for the course.
We did note that the CLD-97's output from a maximum-level digital audio signal was 1.2 dB greater than the standard 2 volts. That's inconsequential for playback of ordinary CD's, but with Dolby Surround-encoded CD's and laserdisc soundtracks, it could cause frequency-response errors in the surround channel due to mistracking of the Dolby B circuit in that channel of the surround decoder. Those errors can be exacerbated by incorrect setting of the reference level within a Dolby Pro Logic decoder-an all-too-common circumstance. Fortunately, response accuracy is usually less critical in the surround channel than in the front channels.
Video bandwidth and, thus, resolution were excellent, and gray-scale linearity (an indicator of fidelity in the critical black-and-white portion of the video signal) was superb, the best we have ever seen from a laserdisc player. I couldn't tell if the CLD-97's picture quality was a direct result of this unusual accuracy, but it was certainly outstanding.
The on-screen video performance does indeed justify the CLD-97's front-panel designation as a "Reference CD LD CDV Player." And its audio performance, though not the absolute best we've seen on the test bench in every respect, was very, very good overall and sounded that way. That, together with a complete range of convenience features for both CD and laserdisc playback, makes the CLD-97 a serious contender for the affections of dedicated movie and music enthusiasts.
