The Pioneer Elite BDP-09FD Owner's Thread... - Page 2

Great thread!


Joe: We'll all be interested to see 5000ES vs. Pioneer 09, the grudge match.

I've had my 09FD for a week now. I can confirm what joerod has said regarding PQ and AQ of the unit. I have not experienced a DVD layer change so I am not sure how slow it actually is (mostly been checking out Blu-ray material).

I haven't explored the video adjustments as much as joerod has, but they are all there. An interesting note on the Kurolink according to the ISF guy who was out and calibrated my new panel: it will defeat any ISF settings if you use it, so we just turned it off.

As far as I can tell the analog outs are not active at the same time as the HDMI audio out (haven't tried the optical). You have to go into the menus and switch between them. A bit of an annoyance (must be particularly annoying for joerod with his testing). If I'm wrong I'd love to know. Also didn't see any button on the remote for switching.

For now I have been using the analog outs and they sound great. Since my receiver has all of the smarts for room equalization and speaker sizing, etc. I just set the audio parameters in the player to do as little processing of the audio before it gets to the receiver (large speakers all around, all distances equal and at default, all levels equal and at default, etc.).

Unit came with firmware version 2.15 and a day or so later 2.24 showed up on the Pioneer website. Update was smooth via a CD. Oh, haven't played any CDs on it yet either. All of my music is delivered from a server these days.

This seems pretty clear to me, from the manual and joe's last post. Video can be switched between HDMI-Main, HDMI-Sub, and analog. It can output video to two devices simultaneously, but only at the top resolution of the the lowest-resolution device. The HDMI-Main carries the complete audio track, and HDMI-Sub carries 2-channel audio.

This fact alone makes the Sony BDP-S5000ES a better unit.

I was wondering about this. Important little tidbit for those of us with ISF-calibrated Kuros, so thanks for sharing that.

Joe, great review. You work here is an excellent example of what makes AVS Forum the great forum it is.

Have you tried the 48bit BD video up-conversion or any audio CDs to test the jitter reduction?

Much thanks!

-Robert

I would speculate being "HEAVY" is synonymous with great audio quality in this case. This unit must have large (separate) torroidial power-supplies I bet?

Would be nice to see some internal images of this unit's construction........

Click on the "build" tab on the following link. It shows pictures of the build and the torroidial you wanted to see.

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PU...ontent/Blu-ray

I really want this to replace my 51FD.

Thanks for all the great work Joe.

-K

Yes, the product sheet/brochure confirms my curiousity about audiophile design of this unit:
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/ep...s/BDP-09FD.pdf

This player is serious! Discrete, separate, torroidial power-supplies for audio and video. aluminum and metal construction/bracing.

Now I'm very curious how good 2ch (CD) playback is. Did also notice this unit only has 5.1ch OUT's, and no additional discrete 2ch OUT's. I assume CD playback outputs to FRONT channels of 5.1ch OUT's?

This may replace my DVD-3800BDCI. We'll see.........

But this has nothing to do with the Pioneer, right? It's how the disc is mastered I believe.

I imagine it is the same as the 05....some BR movies you can resume, and some you can't.

The DVD-3800BDCI with its dual-differential Burr-Brown PCM1796 is actually a slightly better design than the Pioneers choice of Wolfson DACs as the Burr-Browns have better SNR...so don't be too hasty to make that decision. Also, the Denon, from the circuit I saw, has separate power supplies too. In fact the Denon is also a very serious bit of kit...see some inside pics here:-

http://www.avforums.com/forums/blu-r...-3800-a-3.html

In the UK, there are a few who have been disappointed with the analogue outputs of the Pioneer with comments such as harsh, too much treble. THey seem to prefer to the Denon. On the other hand, some find the Denon too smooth. So clearly there is room for personal taste here, rather than just better.

Also, a few prefer the Denon for BD playback, but the Pioneer for DVD playback...so once again, this is not clear cut.

Exactly.

So why are we wanting to do away with the Stop button entirely, and comparing to VCR's?

They had an exploded version when they announced it:

yeah, I'm very aware of the Denon's design capability. Actually I prefer it's CD playback performance over everything I've heard so far.

My only apprehension, so far, with the Denon's is quality. I own, both, the DVD-3800BDCI and DVD-3930CI, and both experienced major failures while brand-new (and had to be shipped back to Denon). I'm always on the edge that something will fail. At the same time they perform like no other (when they're working).

On the other hand, my BDP-05FD operates very solid.

This is delightful news about the 09; However, it's still a strange match to the SC-09TX receiver unless they make a few firmware changes.

good work joe


thanks for that link jon, the 3800 does indeed have a pretty decent power supply and good to see separate 2ch and 7ch dacs, appreciate the post as have been looking for a peek under that hood for quite a while !

No, I do not believe that there is any way to from analog to hdmi or vice versa without going into the menus. I can deal with this due to the PQ & SQ of this unit. I will just have to make sure that I switch it back to hdmi for the other family members who are always about such things.

if you hit pause, that is usually time limited, cant do that over night for instance ! also eject or top menu would loose where you were upto ! (for the poorly implemeted discs)

it is the disc behaviour that needs to be modified. Its poor java implementation on discs that cause this issue. We rarely ever watch a movie in one sitting which is where the stop button comes in handy

for BD discs where stop is properly implemented, you can stop the discs play and take off where left off. you can stop the discs and on my sony 5000 even switch the player off. switch it back on hit the play button and it still picks up where left off. this is how DVD works on the same player and what most people expect regardless of disc - especially where spending big bucks on a player like this

Bingo!

Thanks Joerod, I have a large collection of DVD as well, I will love to use this as the regular DVD player, can you tell us if 09 can play DVD other than region 1?

WF

Joerod...Is the 09 plagued with the same 3 to 4 second layer change issue that the 05/51 has?...and why does Pioneer have this problem?...and also, does anyone know if it can be fixed with a firmware upgrade?

Good points by JonStatt for analog. Let me also add that at this moment, the 09 still has a fixed crossover for bass management whereas the 3800 allows for 40/60/80/100/120Hz as crossover choices. There is speculation that Pioneer may allow crossover adjustment via a future firmware update but, as with the DTS-HD MA decoding update, I'll believe it when I see it!

Joerod, your pics for SD DVD definitely show spectacular use of Qdeo. Any chance you can run the HQV benchmarks for SD DVD and BD? How about real world content like the Gladiator flyover, steps in Mission Impossible 3, etc? Also, how does this compare to the 05/51 in terms of responsiveness/load times? My guess is that they're more or less comparable.

It appears so.

When I tested it, it was about 23 secs from the moment the tray closed to when it played.