Pioneer Elite BDP-52FD and BDP-53FD Owners' Thread - Page 5

The AK4480 is quite impressive in the specs, certainly nothing to be ashamed of. SNR and THD are comparable to Wolfson 8740. It has higher max. sampling rate (216 MHz) and more digital filter modes than the Wolfson and also DSD capable unlike the Wolfson. It is not quite as well spec'ed as the DSD capable Wolfson 8741 which has more filter options and higher SNR. All these are specs and it is debatable whether the differences in SNR are audible .

Currently I have players with Wolfson 8740 (Pioneer 51FD, Arcam CD36, DV137, DV139), Wolfson 8741 (Arcam CD37) and BB1796 (Sony SCD-XA5400ES) DACs and I like the Sony sound the most. It's nothing to do with dynamic range but mostly to presentation and the 'being in the same room' feel, a personal preference. The Arcam players have toroid transformers and more than one DAC running at dual mono. The Arcam CD36 upsamples CD to 24/196 and the Sony to 1-bit delta-sigma stream (DSD-like). All these and the whole chassis and analogue stage design do contribute to the overall SQ.

PS. I did not expect the 53FD at the outset (before launch) to outperform the above for 2CH analogue. I just didn't see it in this capacity.
PPS. Beware some very vocal members on AVS even insist all DACs have no audible difference, that they all decode digital audio with a flat response from 20-20kHz.

Anybody care to offer an impression of it's SD DVD upscaling and HD Bluray playback performance, particularly versus the OPPO 83/93, or Denon 1611/2012. If it is'nt better or as good, why should we buy it?

I'm apprehensive after reading this thread, but glad that my supplier has a return window.

I will be comparing it to the Oppo 93 which I also own. The reason I'm even looking at this player is that I've found Oppo players to be buggy. (I returned 2 Oppo 83s before I got the 93).

If the Pioneer's glitches are easier to live with I may keep it.

Why can't anyone make a good quality blu-ray player that loads fast, plays SACDs, doesn't have flimsy build quality and doesn't constantly lock up?

I'm starting to just come to the conclusion that the blu-ray format isn't worth the trouble and that's why others are turning to alternate means of watching their HD movies.

I will put the player through its paces and see if I can tolerate it. One of my friends thinks I'm really hard to please if I nitpick about the Oppo.

We'll see. I will post an update in the next few days.

Thanks for the response. I really have'nt seen anything substantive on the 53's actual video performance playing discs. I'm not that concerned with streaming or 3D. I have an OPPO 83 and a Denon 4010. I'd concur with your statement about the OPPO. My OPPO 83 frequently ignores commands from the remote. I also read a combined review of the OPPO 93 and 95 on audioholics that says: "The only real gripe we found was that, on occasion, both players seemed unresponsive to the remote control. There were instances where we tried to navigate through the setup menus where the players simply didn't respond. We informed Oppo about this and they also confirmed some users occasionally experienced similar issues."
On my OPPO 83 it is not just the menu, it is any and all functions. If you ask me the bottom line is high tech equipment and Chinese manufacturing are'nt a good match, something seems to get lost in translation. It is'nt really brand dependent, probably alot of them are made in the same huge for contract Chinese factory.
Anyway the 83 does have excellent SD upscaling, so I am curious to see what your impression is of the Pioneer versus any OPPO for DVD and Bluray playback.........thanks

I got my package from UPS off the front porch and proceeded to unpack and set up my new unit after dinner tonight.

I connected it exactly the same way my Oppo is hooked up. I was bitstreaming DSD in Pure Direct mode from SACD to my receiver and right off the bat I thought the Elite sounded better. Could it be my imagination? So far only comparing classical, it looks like the Elite is as good or better than the Oppo for SACD bitstreaming. Maybe I'm noticing the benefits of PQLS too?

Other thoughts:

• Appearance: the Elite is as nice as the Oppo 93. It is not as deep, but the finish, design, and heft are every bit the equal of the Oppo.
• Disk tray: here is the Pioneer's weakness. The tray is noisy and cheap looking. However, it loads very fast.
• Remote: the Oppo wins here, but not by much. After the first week I throw these in a drawer and let my Harmony take over.
• Disc loading/startup: the Elite is the winner by a mile. As usual, the Oppo locked up at least a dozen times. It required my ritual of multiple Eject/Off/On clicks on the remote to get it working.
• Other: the Pioneer is not without its problems. I did exoerience the remote freezes that others have mentioned. However none of these were as frequent or frustrating as the Oppo lockups.
• Front Panel Display/Onscreen displays: the front panel desperately needs to show the track as well as elapsed time. For SACDs, it would be really nice if they displayed the Disc/Artist/Song data which is encoded on all SACDs.
• Track skipping and direct access via the number keypad is maybe a little quicker than the Oppo.

Later in the week I will begin testing Blu-ray and DVD playback.

Thanks. Will be interested in your take on the Pioneers HD Bluray PQ, and 1080P SD DVD upscaling PQ relative to the OPPO.

I really wanted to like this player but it's no use to me as either an audio or video player at this point.

• Multi channel SACDs rear channels are really screwed up! There is NO output at all for the Surr Right channel. The Surr Left sounds twice the volume it should be and is possibly outputting one or both of the Front channels!
• Video quality on blu-ray is drab and dull looking. Soft, muted colors and mediocre contrast. For a player at this price with the Marvelle chip, it should look better.

I don't know if Pioneer will get some software updates out quickly, but I'm not waiting long.

Most likely this will go back. I think my only other choices are Denon or
Yamaha.

Your observations need further clarification and verification as nobody else has made such 'bizarre' complaints.

1. You said in your previous post the player sent DSD so is same SACD on the other player sending DSD OK? What about sending PCM? What about other SACDs?
2. PQ comments are only meaningful if the player has been calibrated and you specify which viewing mode and what settings are used. Have you tried changing these? Again, how is the same BD on the other player and other BDs?

How about resetting the player and try again. What if you happened to get a faulty player?

I'm not having any of those issues. On a SC-07/53fd/151fd combo...audio and video playback is great. Multichannel sacds play fine...pq is the best I've seen on my 151.

Only problems I'm having is I can't get wav files on a 2TB usb NTFS hard drive to show up. I did however stream via network last night, and they worked great! Also played a lot of home movies over ethernet last night, and they worked great....

I also still can't figure out PQLS on SACDs. Light never comes on. But regardless, the SACDS and just regular cds with pqls have never sounded better in my setup. Very happy camper on that front.

It's good to see some more people posting on this player. Still waiting to hear from Big C, I think he said he was getting one too.

did you remember to turn on kurolink in your player & receiver? PQLS only works using the HDMI CEC control channel, used to be called HDMI Contol by Pioneer then revised to kurolink. Having it set to Auto also may work, but turning it off kills using PQLS. you also have to turn PQLS on in the receiver as well as kurolink.

Yes, I have it turned on. I'm getting PQLS for cds, lights up just fine, though cds load so fast and with autoplay I have to hit stop twice and restart for the pqls to sync with my receiver. Can't get the light to come on for sacds though.

latest PQLS version is supposed to be format agnostic, so confused there.
Are you sending as PCM or DSD? That would be the only thing I can think of.

It might only work with bitstreamed PCM so can't use with DSD directly to the receiver. The SC-07 may be your limiting factor there; it's been awhile & I can't remember if the 07 can decode DSD or not. I know my SC-09 can Some of the SC models couldn't handle DSD direct.

Other than that, I'm at a loss the old Ilink players had PQLS that worked for all audio discs, SACD DSD direct as well as converted to PCM.

Are you using the analogue out? How?

Hi there,

Here's a list of issues and Wished improvements from our french forum about the LX-55.

Hope Chris will take note of it.

Troubles/issues :

- Qdeo deinterlacing doesn't work well with SD content in 576p and 1080p (ok in 1080i).
See below for caps
- The adjust video menu is displayed over the picture.
So you can't really see what you are changing.
- Some FLAC files don't work or are unseen.
- HDMI CEC trouble when you are in "separate mode"
- DLNA - The player doesn't respond if there are AVI files in a folder.

Widhed improvements :

- More than one custom picture presets (like previous Elite models)
- ISO support (DVD and/or Bluray)
- More than one AVCHD folder on external HDD.
- "Video out" on HDMI 2
- NFS and/or Samba support

Here's pic where you can see the issue with interlaced sd content in 1080p on the lx55, and the same pic on the ps3

As you can see, outline colors seem displaced.

i believe he returned his - checkout the bdp-140/440/lx55 thread

No, I'm using it to play SACDs bit streamed as DSD through HDMI.
My receiver can handle that.

I did a lot of testing tonight:

• I swapped out the HDMI cable
• I swapped HDMI inputs on the receiver
• I disconnected ethernet
• I turned off all HDMI CEC due to problems it causes with remotes
• I tried it on several multi-channel discs
• I parallel tested this with my Oppo player

In all cases I used the Oppo with the Elite's cable and HDMI input. It never exhibited the problems of the Pioneer.

An interesting thing to note is that sometimes when I would swap out a cable or input, when I first powered on the Pioneer the sound would be fine. But after putting in a third or fourth disc, the Surr Rt channel would be silent. I also got some strange dropout on a particular disc in the same place that the Oppo would never get. I noticed that at that time mark the HDMI sync light would go out and I'd get about a 2 sec dropout. Always in the same spot in that song.

Anyway, if it weren't for the audio problems, I could live with its other issues until Pioneer gets a firmware fix out.

I wish I could just buy a product that works. I've upgraded my subwoofer and receiver as well. I'm not up to doing all this beta-testing.

Just received my BDP-53FD, and it has been nothing short of a nightmare. This unit has many issues. When connected to the LAN, it receives an addy from the DHCP server, but network test fails, and unit locks up (unplug here). Leave unit on for 30+ min and it powers down, as it should, however, upon starting up, the unit is locked (unplug here). PQSL is iffy. Have it connected to an SC37. Swapped out cables, played with settings, did I mention it locks up (unplug here). I am a big fan of Elite equipment and a fan Pioneer since the 70s, however; this unit scares me. When it does play back, SACds, DVD A and Blu Ray are all excellent.

Maybe it was a good thing Pioneer did not want me to Review this player!

Holy crap I'm glad I kept my "buy Impulse" in check. I thought about it for a little bit and sprung the extra for a Denon because I'm just a Denon dude.

If i am just using this for the dual hdmi ports. and only 3d movie play back should i have to many issues with this unit?

If others didn't experience the audio problems that I did then my unit must have been faulty.

One other thing, the audio problems did NOT pop up when I played SACDs through the hdmi output #2. I just couldn't stand that though because I would have no display at all of what was playing since there is no track # on the front panel.

I ended up ordereing the Yamaha A1010. I hope it's better. I'm not going to have unrealistic expectations. The thread on that player is looking a bit more promising.

You probably hit the same problem that I encountered. I narrowed down to the source which is the Windows Home Server that I have in the network. The media UnUP server, or more details the UDP streaming caused the 53fd to hang. It can only get the IP address from the DHCP then it got stuck.

The problem is common to Panny BDP75 too. Make me wonder if they shared the same reference design. It is said that the 53fd is OK with the WHS 2011. I am going to upgrade my server during the Christmas time and report back if they are OK.

Interesting. I would think I would still have LAN and Internet connectivity. Are your thoughts that WHS 10 is jamming up the player during discovery?

There are 2 versions of WHS. The old one is just called WHS which is based on Windows Server 2003. This the one which is causing the problem.

After the 53fd acquired the IP address via DHCP or by static IP address, it will discover the media server on the network. In my case I have both WHS and WD NAS. The WD NAS is perfectly fine. However the packet from the WHS which are the UDP packets that killed the 53fd. It may happen to other type of media server. For me it is the WHS. What kind of media server do you have in your network?

I have the original, It's an HP Media Server w/SP2 Interesting that my SC37 does not have any issues.

Based on the theory. If I shut down WHS, I shoot be able to successfully reach the internet. Would you agree?

"should" was what I meant, however, I am ready to "shoot" something lol

okay, shutdown WHS and indeed the network issue went away. Connected to the internet no problem. This is unfortunate, as I always leave my server on, and, I would like to be able to utilize BD Live. Ican get to all the other stuff via the HTPC. Thank you for this. Now, I just need to figure out why this unit has other quirks. i.e. just now tried to power it on after being off for a day and the power button was non responsive. I had to again unplug it to reset and then it powered on fine. Will continue to troubleshoot. Thx again