FS: Kenwood DEM999 Laserdisc RF Demodulator

[BobMurdoch]

Was cleaning up my equipment room and found this outboard RF Demodulator which is needed for those of you wanting to get DD5.1 off of your old laserdisc collection.

I still have about 100 Laserdiscs, but my Integra 9.1 A/V receiver that I got in 2001 has the circuitry built in so I don't need it.

It cost me $100 in 1998, and I've seen it sold online for $100. Will sell for $75 plus the cost of shipping if you are interested.

Contains the unit and a power brick. You need to supply the orange component audio cables to connect it to your A/V receiver if it has the component audio jacks (the orange plastic connectors - some have either or with the optical TOSLINK and the component audio) .

 

[iceturkee]

this would work with any laserdisc player? i have a top of the line pioneer elite ld player and i wonder if this would work?

 

[BobMurdoch]

It has to be one capable of transmitting through a Dolby Digital signal (some of the lower end or older ones only could handle Dolby Matrix Surround which split the rear channel and wasn't 5.1). The way to check is to check the rear of your Laserdisc Player. If it has a female orange RCA connector with the word "component" by it, then you should be good to go. If it only has the red, white, yellow analog combo, or has separate connectors for the rear channels, then it won't work.

 

[iceturkee]

i just checked and i'm shocked. its a pioneer elite cld-95, manufactured in 1992 and was the second best ld player they made. but there is no place to connect ac3. i bought the unit on ebay about a year ago and i love it as i have over 100 ld's myself.

in any event, i guess it won't work. i'm really bummed. thanks bob.

 

[BobMurdoch]

I believe the first AC3 Laserdiscs came out in 1994 so it was a matter of your machine not being new enough, not that a top of the line receiver left off a standard feature. I think it was one of the Jack Ryan movies that was the first to have it and I noticed that I couldn't decode the signal. I wound up upgrading to a Pioneer combo DVD/Laserdisc player a few years later that had the passthrough capability built in. I then saw I needed the outboard demodulator so I bought the Kenwood. When the Phantom Menace was only available in the states in VHS (?!?) , I had bought a Japanese import that had the DD5.1. Nice. (Jar Jar notwithstanding)

We've all moved on, but several of those discs have content you can't get anywhere else (I still have the original Star Wars Trilogy where Han shoots first, etc., Terminator 2 with buckets of special content, including the annotated script). My son needed to watch a movie for high school that compared what they were studying (viruses) with Hollywood's treatment of them... and then contrast what was plausible and what wasn't. I dusted off the old Dustin Hoffman/Cuba Gooding disk "Outbreak" for him. Other than the break every 30 minutes when the disc had to be flipped, it looked and sounded fine.

 

[iceturkee]

i do have a digital optical audio output that i have connected to my receiver. and there's a heck of diference in the audio between my thx version of top gun and the stereo version.....even without the ac3 connector.

let me ask this bob....i know some ld units could be modified for the ac3, do you think this unit could be modified for your demodulator? just curious, thanks.

 

[jayn_j]

i do have a digital optical audio output that i have connected to my receiver. and there's a heck of diference in the audio between my thx version of top gun and the stereo version.....even without the ac3 connector.

let me ask this bob....i know some ld units could be modified for the ac3, do you think this unit could be modified for your demodulator? just curious, thanks.

I am confused. If you have a digital output from the player, then it most likely already has the mod, as well as a built in decoder. The CLD-95 as shipped only had analog outputs.

The mods could be applied to any laserdisc player that could read the digital tracks. There were a few circuits floating around and here is a link to a site that lists several of them: AC-3 Laserdisc Modification board - installed in a Pioneer CLD-D703

 

[BobMurdoch]

Thanks J., I'm no hacker/modder so I have no clue as to what magic he could perform on his old unit.

I never did understand why they made it so you had to have one of these little gizmos in the first place, but you needed it in the mid to late 90's. My Integra 9.1 AV Receiver must have been one of the few that had it onboard. It's also the main reason I am in no rush to upgrade... I don't need HDMI switching as I have an Oppo switcher that does that for me. TrueHD might be nice.... Anyone think it makes a huge difference vs. SurroundEX or DTS6.1 Discrete (which mine has)?

 

[iceturkee]

I am confused. If you have a digital output from the player, then it most likely already has the mod, as well as a built in decoder. The CLD-95 as shipped only had analog outputs.

The mods could be applied to any laserdisc player that could read the digital tracks. There were a few circuits floating around and here is a link to a site that lists several of them: AC-3 Laserdisc Modification board - installed in a Pioneer CLD-D703

no, i have seen 95's that were modded for ac3 modulators. perhaps, the original units did not have the digital optical audio. i seem to recall reading when i got back into laserdiscs that there were different modifications you could make. and i'm thinking you could go ac3, which i think would require digital cox or digital optical audio. i don't think any receivers in the 80's or early 90's were equipped with the optical audio. or they were very expensive.

it sounds like bob;s modulator requires a different mod than ac3.


btw, bob, if you were referring to me as a guy, i'm not. i'm a sat gal.

 

[BobMurdoch]

My deepest apologies. Far be it from me to insult one of the few lasses who "gets" our devotion to our humble little "hobby".

As for the compatibility issue, pretty much if your Laserdisc player has an orange RCA jack on the rear panel AND your receiver has an orange RCA jack on your receiver, then this device should work. This isn't needed if your receiver has onboard AC-3 processing, but there were few that did, and pretty much any receivers made in the last 7 years or so haven't had it.

 

[jayn_j]

OK, we are talking about two different schemes here, Iceturkee.

There was a war going back then between Dolby Labs and DTS. The dolby digital signal was the one that required an AC-3 adapter. The DTS would go through a standard digital coax or TOSLINK.

I didn't think that any 95 had the DTS connector. I thought that started with the CLD-97 and the later LD/DVD combo players. I apologize for the confusion.

Yes, you can make the mod as described in the webpages and then use this adapter.

I still have a fair number of laserdiscs. Being cheap, I didn't bother to upgrade to DVD. Now that Blu-Ray is out though, I am upgrading as stuff becomes available. I was an early adopter, so I keep the old Discovision stuff and some rarities like the 1978 Sears catalog. There are probably another 50 titles or so that will not be released on BR any time soon. Another 200 or so are fair game for replacement. That leave another 300 that have either been replaced or which fall into the "what was I thinking" category.

 

[iceturkee]

thanks for clarifying jayn. i thought i had read about different options. but my memory isn't as good as it use to be.

but it sounds like what bob is describing isn't an ac3 demodulator, correct? because pics of ac3 mods i've seen don't have an orange plug. and my onkyo receiver doesn't have an orange plug either.

id ld many years ago when it first came out and got back into it a little more than a year ago. i've managed to get mint ld's cheap because no one in the daytona area seems to know what they are.

 

[jayn_j]

thanks for clarifying jayn. i thought i had read about different options. but my memory isn't as good as it use to be.

but it sounds like what bob is describing isn't an ac3 demodulator, correct? because pics of ac3 mods i've seen don't have an orange plug. and my onkyo receiver doesn't have an orange plug either.

id ld many years ago when it first came out and got back into it a little more than a year ago. i've managed to get mint ld's cheap because no one in the daytona area seems to know what they are.

It is an AC demodulator. The orange plug is simply an RCA plug and socket. They colored them orange to differentiate them from the yellow composite video and the red and white analog audio. Any composite video cable will work in this application.

But you do need to make the modification to the player to have the AC-3 signal output for the decoder.

 

[iceturkee]

i saw a diagram for the demodulator bob is selling and it looks like it requires digital coax cable for hook up. i admit i'm confused why i can't get dd 5.1 with my digital optical audio. i know you explained dd 5.1 v dts. anyhow, thanks for all of your help jayn!