CD Player/Transport Reviews

This was, originally, to be a shootout between an established maker of video gear—Pioneer—and an upstart—Panasonic. Pioneer didn't exactly invent the laser videodisc player, but they can arguably be said to have kept it alive through some lean years. The first sample of the $1200 Pioneer CLD-3090 we received was faulty, however, in that its picture was extremely "noisy." The player was returned to Pioneer for servicing, but then it exhibited other idiosyncrasies. The cover on its loading drawer would often hang up, opening without difficulty but refusing to close without a manual assist. More importantly, the 3090 simply refused to play CDs properly. It would play through the first 20 or 30 minutes without a problem, but after this, on the majority of discs that I tried having more than this amount of total playing time, the player began to misbehave. Somewhere in the last half of these discs the sound would begin to distort badly with an unmistakable buzzy, tearing sound.

At this point I requested a second sample of the 3090. But before I subjected this additional sample to a test of its CD playback, I began by checking its video performance, as per my previously discussed criteria. Unfortunately, sample two turned out to be defective also, and with an entirely new problem—closer in nature to problems I had first heard of with this player but had not yet experienced firsthand. It wouldn't play any of the dozen or so recent discs I attempted to load. The drawer would close, the Play indicator would come on, and less than a second later it would switch off. Not only that, but the drawer would then refuse to open to offer up the rejected disc. I noted another interesting quirk: the 3090 would play side two of any of the rejected discs if, after pressing play, I immediately pressed the "Side B" button. (As it turned out, the drawer would also open to enable me to retrieve the disc if I first pressed the Side B button, then pressed Stop as soon as the player began playing the reverse side.)

I will report on the performance of this Pioneer in a future issue once I get a sample that works.—Thomas J. Norton