PierreB

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Visitors rate this review
4.00 of 5, 4.00 votes

Price Paid:  $700.00 from PARIS

Summary:
GOOD for this price: Robust Tray, well manufactured & shielded, good film & electrolytic Caps, very good power supply & converters for 1998's years, good OpAmps compromise. Very good "LineOut" sound... except the HEADPHONE amplifier OUT which sightly "clip@-5Volts" on some HIGH level's CD with my old 100$'s 600 Ohms Senheiser (ex.female chords,like Eskil !) nothing easy to do.. But, just a word for Eskil: take care with your Amp, because the high 2V "line level" out of the PDS06 COULD saturate your pre-amp!! (it was the case with my old 1979's Luxman-L81 which has "only" 120mV sensibility: i had to attenuate by 6dB my Luxman Input, and all is now OK!). Also, for the noise: open the player, front panel near you: you will notice 2 small Pots at the "right side" of the PDS06 and: re-trim a little (one of the 2, i don't remember!) and it will have a impact over the noise!! The other Pot is the PLL/Tracking; but netherless if you "remember" the mechanical position of the 2xpot's cursor it's NO problem even with (like me) no schematics... hope it helps ! (the modification of 100pF CapsOut is NOT mandatory with this 470 Ohms out-resistance inside: 1meter of classical CINCH cable is about 200pF itself).

Strengths:
Construction, simple remote. Good Sound, Dynamics & Basses. Headphone with output level(Cermetpot) adjust.

Weaknesses:
Poor & unusable (for purist) headphone OUT with impedance higher than 32 Ohms.

Similar Products Used:
Old SONY 1BitStream of 1988's

Price Paid:  $500.00 from EURO RTV Warsaw

Summary:
Looks and construction: You can hardly find that nicely built CD Player for $500. Very reliable stable platter mechanism, good chasis with electromagnetic shields. Attention to detail in contrcution. Only power cord could be better. Sound: Good to very good depending on repertoire and experience with more expensive players. Natural and well balanced, however not very lively. Good space and location of instruments, strong bass. Presents music with the kind of smoothness and warmth you are about to love when listening lod for more than 30 minutes. Sometimes lacks the pulse and accuracy of (Marantz players) but is stronger than for instance Marantz OSE 6000 in buliding the atmosphere. Nothing to complain about in this price ranger unless you prefer fast beat to feeling.

Strengths:
All but fastness

Similar Products Used:
System: Amp: AUDIOLAB 8000S ($1000), Speakers: Audiowave 135SE ($900), Cables: KimberTC (speakers) Oelbach NF1 (Interconnect)

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
Hi, I agree the player plays very well most of the time. But on some cd's I guess this legato link stuff freaks out. On some cd's, the noise level is unusually high with this player - example: The famous Hotel california live recording from Eagles, hell frezes over. Other cd's with a lot of treble content it can sound extremely sharp/scrill, and even sound like the recording is clipped. an example of very sharp sounding recording (on this cd player): George micael: spinnig the weel. fake clipping heard on some female choir cd's, when all sang wery high notes.

Strengths:
great sound most of the time

Weaknesses:
some stuff sounds bad or very bad. The pcb quality is poor.

Price Paid:  $530.00 from Moscow

Summary:
Hi again.I found that Pioneer trusts to their Legato Link
Digital Filter so a lot that made output circuit some
simpler that required.This creates some strange harmonics
in high frequency range, which makes a few "nerves" feeling
during listening the music.As i found ,Pioneer didn't
install output capacitors near audio output sockets and
didn't install output rf-filters.You may install both
capacitors ( 100pF ), install link between output trace
and capacitor trace on the second channel ( this link is
already installed on first channel ), rip output trace
very close of output sockets and solder two thru-pass
ferrite-circle supplied filters ( the same as are used
for low supply filtering in processor circuits )beteween
output traces and output sockets ( i.e.thru-pass )on
the printed side of the board.This modification makes the sound more "like-analog" with more soft highs , but
don't worry- the "air" and "dimension" remain as well.

Strengths:
One of the best transport and one of the best converters

Weaknesses:
non-finished output circuit

Similar Products Used:
Cambridge Audio CD6

Price Paid:  $564.00 from Dublin

Summary:
I had previously demo'd an Arcam 7SE prior to obtaining the PDS06. For the price the Arcam's build is too flimsy although the Pioneer did cost an extra hundred and also I didn't want to combine it with the Arcam 8R amp. In contrast the build quality and particularly the CD platter on the Pioneer is excellent. The PDS06 sound quality is very good especially for jazz,however sometimes I find it a bit mild on rock. Also I wonder about the merits of the High-Bit Legato Link Conversion S which restores lost signals below 16 bits and requantises them. Often times the effect of this is to restore hiss sounds to certain CD's, I've tested this on regular CD players and the hiss is not picked up. For such a high spec model I would have expected it to be able to play CD RW's but this is not the case.

I used the Pioneer in combination with B&W 600 Series 2 and an Arcam 8R amp.

Strengths:
Top quality build design. Good sound.

Weaknesses:
No power on/off switch with the remote

Similar Products Used:
Arcam 7SE