I have heard this player is great for cd music listening. Is the analog outs the best option for this player when listening to cd's or laserdiscs? Thanks.

As with any video disc player, when you use a digital audio connection, all of your audio processing takes place in your receiver, not in the player. All disc players will give you identical results in this scenario, because the player isn't doing anything to the audio bitstream other than sending it through the cable and handing it to your receiver.

If you want to benefit from the CLD-97's DACs, you will need to use the analog connections. Pioneer's "Elite" LD players are known for having good DACs, but these players are over a decade and a half old. Depending on your receiver, you may have something better on that end already.

I have the Onkyo TX-SR605 so I think the Pioneer may be better. My Sony DVP-S7000 sounds great through analog and better than my Onkyo.

I've had my CLD-97 hooked up to many different Denon AVR's. I've always found the sound from the analog connection to be superior to the digital connection. I don't use any other player to play CD's. It has always sounded the best to me when compared to other components.

So, my CLD-97 has decided it doesn't like DTS laserdiscs anymore. I cannot get one to play properly. The DTS track drops in and out and has lots of popping going on. The analog tracks are not working either. The player was modified many moons ago to play AC-3 without an RF demodulator. Digital PCM discs play fine as do CD's. Anybody ever have this problem?