The Pioneer Elite BDP-09FD Owner's Thread... - Page 273

I rarely use mine either, but before I stick in a disc, I rinse it out with soap. Every time I pick up a rental, the disc is soiled in popcorn grease, fingerprints and dust. Eventually it all gathers on the laser head. If this is the case, I personally wouldn't be afraid to take it apart to simply clean out the lens.

I'm interested in those interconnects. Do know of a place I can pick them up?

http://www.audiophileoutletstore.com...-au24e-rca.htm

I hope the price is a typo.

Thanks for the link. It made my day.


Kind of brings to mind a vision of putting a sleeping persons hand in a glass of warm water and waithing for the wet spot to appear... and all for the low, low, price of $599.00 after a 30% discount. More fun than humans should be allowed to have...

I got my 3 pairs on Audiogon. They don't come up that often; it took me several months to get all 3 pairs but it definitely saved $$$, and all 3 pairs were in mint condition.

I've been pretty happy with KimberKable Hero interconnects, which come up used much more frequently and are considerably cheaper.. I'm sure the AU24 are great, but not sure I'd drop that kind of $$ considering you need 3pr. Perhaps if I was using the Pioneer as my CD player as well, I could justify the expense, but for strictly movie sound it's a tougher call for me (although if I won the PowerBall- why not..)

I also share the paranoia of owning a unit several yrs old now, and still functioning on the original drive unit.. I've had the occasional loading error, maybe 3 or 4 in total over the yrs, but nothing consistent enough to warrant sending it in.. I'm either lucky I guess, or just not using it enough.

I also use the 09 as my 2-ch source.

I use Cardas Golden Reference interconnects between my pre/pro and amps (all Krell), and they're amazing. So when I first got the 09 I automatically thought I'd use the Cardas for the analog outs to the pre/pro...but sonically they just weren't a good match with the 09. I auditioned a bunch of cables (including different interconnects in the Cardas line), and the Au24e's were the clear winners (and cheaper than the Golden Reference ). BTW: there was a very noticeable difference between the Au24 and the Au24e versions.

So with cables, YMMV, depending on compatibililty with the rest of your system.

I'd certainly agree with that.... I'd love to try a really nice set of interconnects like the Au24's or Cardas or LessLoss or a set of the higher end Kimbers on my 2-ch setup just for my own enlightenment, but I just can't get myself over the hurdle of the cost at this point.... I'm also scared they might be great, and then I'd really be in trouble.. It gets expensive in a hurry! But, I'm stuck with the analog outputs for now because I run everything through a Classe SSP600 to a SimAudio W5 and I can't afford to replace my pre/pro with anything that supports HDMI and sounds as good at the moment. I'm not sure where my "weak link" is right now, but I'm generally pretty happy with how things are working.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.....

Everything that follows here is just my personal opinion...

Anything that anyone else says is just their personal opinion.

Just use your 09FD to your heart's content and care for it as you would any high end component in your system. Chances are you will be just fine for years to come. Your 09FD will either develop the "CAN'T READ" problem or it won't. I doubt there's anything you can do to avoid your ultimate destiny - GOOD or (hopefully not) BAD.

Those of us who did experience the problem and had our 09FDs repaired by Pioneer have never reexperienced the symptom. That together with the fact that many people on this forum never had any such problem is proof enough for me that Pioneer knows what caused the problem - some subset of drive units and/or ancillary parts they used in some 09FDs were substandard. It was either A bad run OR they figured it out along the way OR they figured it out after the initial failed units showed up for warranty service.

Any good analog cable will serve you well. I'm using 0.5m Kimber Kable Silver interconnects. Use what you know works well with your other components. And, shorter is always better. FWIW, watching films via a BD player is not a like listening to music on a turntable where eeking out every next layer of transparency is worth the $$$ it can often cost. Save as much as you can and buy more BDs and DVDs to WATCH - there are 1000s of excellent films available.

ENJOY your BDP-09FD!!! It truly is the best sounding (via analog outputs) and one of, if not the best, looking BD/DVD players out there! And, it's not too shabby for listening to CDs either, though many of the dedicated reference quality standalone CD players best the 09FD in that regard.

When/if my 09FD ever breaks down again (it has moving parts so I'm sure it will), my first choice for a replacement BD player would currently be an Oppo. Hopefully manufacturers will continue to service us high-end analog people and provide even better sound for years to come. Just a few decades will take care of me, maybe less, hopefully more

I've had my 09FD since early 2009 and I still LOVE it! I wouldn't trade it for anything out there now.

+1

+1 too

Ditto.....

Hi SuckRaven, I, too, have a BDP-09FD player. Love it! I've had mine for about 3 years now. I got it when it first hit the market. To address the "read disc failures" issue, you need to do a firmware update on the player. You can do this one of two ways: You can either download the update from your computer directly to the player or you can call Pioneer and request a firmware update disc. I usually get mine within a week. Once the firmware update is performed, you are good for another 8 to 12 months. It has something to do with the new disc that are being released. As far as I know, all players must have an update performed every now and then.

Re: cables. I use Cardas Golden Reference for analog connection. This way I can hear the DACs in the BDP-09FD...which by the way are by Wolfson...very good DACs. But, since I have a Theta Digital Cassablanca III in my HT system, I'm using a digital connection...Illuminate (D60) by Kimber. It's one of the best digital cable I've heard in a long time. What kind of components are you using? Knowing your equipment would help in choosing the right cable. By the way, I don't rent disc because of the reasons listed above...popcorn grease, etc. Aside from needing an accasional firmware update, I've never had any problems.

The "cannot play disc" "unknown disc" errors are from a laser problem which necessitates a replacement of the drive. This has plauged the 09FD, 51FD and 05FD models. Updating firmware will resolve some playback issues with specific BDs, but not the disc errors. My player also needed the main assy board replaced with the drive, I know of a couple of others that needed that along with the drive replacement. We're probably up to around 20+ members here in this thread that have had the 09FD drive replaced.

Fred

My mistake. As this is my first time on this thread, I was not aware of these problems. I worked for a dealer that sold the Pioneer and I was never aware of these problems described above. I also have the BDP-94HD in another system. No problems with either one except for the firmware updates. It sounds like Pioneer has resolved these problems...hopefully! have you used the analog outs yet? If so, what do you think? I have mine connected both ways to a Theta Digital Cassablanca III. Analog sounds OK. But, the digital connection reigns supreme...since the DACs in the Theta out perform the Wolfson DACs in the BDP-09. The 09 nonetheless, is still a good player.

The BDP-09FD's drive failures seemed to show up for everybody just around the 24 month mark as the 2 year Elite warranty expired......

I've got my BDP-09FD connected to a Pioneer VSX-59TXi receiver via analogs and think the 09FD is great for decoding the Blu-ray HD audio formats. I don't use the 09 for music, I use my Pioneer DV-59AVi DVD player for music via the 59AVi's iLink connection to the 59TXi. I just personally think the digital iLink connection sounds more dynamic and robust than the 09's analog for CDs and the 09 does not play SACD and DVD-Audio discs. I really like the 09FD as a DVD player and think it may be the best DVD player I've ever seen. The 59TXi has enough power to compensate for the volume loss from using analog inputs. It's really weird how great the 09 sounds for movie and concert BDs but doesn't for CDs, maybe I am just spoiled by the 59AVi on music...

Fred

Maybe someone more technical will address this, but my understanding was that the bit rates for CD and DVD are different. Some players are better than others at handling this. I have a Pioneer Elite DVL-91 combi-player, and it sounds great with LD and DVD, but only okay with CD. The 09 sounds better than the DVL-91 with CD, but still didn't beat my current CD player, a McIntosh MCD301 in a head-to-head test. Granted, a small music sampling was used, but the Mac sounded better overall. Its rate is 24/192; the 09's is 24/48. The standard for CD is 16/44.1, not a clean oversampling multiple of 4, as are video rates.

Then again, I have a Marantz DV8400 universal player that I bought back in 2003 to use as a CD player. It is a 24/96 machine, and got some good press on its sound.

Hey does anyone know the best place to sell my 09?

Audiogon,

And also this other site but you have to be a {Supporting Member}.
http://audioaficionado.org/

Good-Luck,
Terry

Thanks!

No problem

Terry

The other day I was playing the Jeff Beck Les Paul tribute DVD and at one point (I forget which song it was, but it was an instrumental) I thought, "wow, that sounds good!" Every now and then something like that happens. This is in 2ch mode with Audioquest Black Mamba II interconnects. Like others, I hope to hold on to this player for a while.

Now that I think about it, that brief comparison with my CD player should perhaps be redone, because I wasn't using the same interconnects. The CDP has Kimber Hero.

HEH guys I am looking for another bluray player. I had an FD09 and it was the best thing .. maybe still is the best. I need 3D tho. I was going to go for the OPPO 95 but I hear about fan noise and spinning noise and remember how quiet the FD09 was and don't want to put up with fan noise. Its also the sign of crappy mechanical parts which would not surprise me. It is unusual that the reviewers do not even bring this aspect up in reviews and when most of us just play bluray movies direct 24P and use pre pros for audio processing who cares what dacs and scaling / processors are being used.

Any favorites out there with 3D?

PM sent to LesPaul.

I just updated my firmware to 2.72 from 2.71. I don't expect any A/V differences, but I like that my settings remain when updates are done.

Sigh... well I think it's finally happening.. Getting the much dreaded "can't read disc / unknown disc" errors fairly frequently now... I thought I might have dodged that bullet, but I guess not. I guess a call to Pioneer repair is in order, but too bad it's out of warranty at this point. I really like this player or I wouldn't even bother with it..

Did you buy it on a credit card w/extended warranty feature? If so, that would extend the warranty another year past Pioneer's warranty.

I'm sure I probably put it on my Discover card, but even if they have an extended warranty (I'd have to look and see) I think I'd still probably be out of luck. I bought the unit in March 2009.. I will admit I'm a bit disappointed that Pioneer isn't standing behind these units a bit better. People (chumps?) like myself paid top dollar for these "top of the line" statement pieces, and this is obviously a chronic issue with these units... That being said, I've been happy with it's performance otherwise.