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Pioneer PD-93 Elite CDP - do they still make them like this (w/nudies)

w1jim

w1jim

I can fix it but good...
Subscriber
I've had this for the past year or so and finally decided to open it up and take a peak inside.
Wow - does anyone (over) build like this these days?

The chassis is copper plated and most of the filtering capacitors are wrapped in copper tape.
Power transformers are both shock mounted on the rear panel.

I was thinking about upgrading the op amps :scratch2:.
BTW, I put the colored stick-on dots on the buttons to make the black-on-black easier to see.

More at:
http://www.thevintageknob.org/pioneer-PD-93.html

A feast for the eyes...


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I have one. It has been sitting un-used for sometime. I recently put together a vintage room with Marantz components (16b/7t/20b) and decided to use this as the cd player (it is sorta vintage:D).

It is a machine!!!! Hasn't given my one bit of trouble.

Thanks for the nudies. Forgot about the expense they went to.
 
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WOW is all I can say.

I have the 65. I'm in no hurry..but hope to have a matching reciver and tape deck stack.

mighty beautiful cd player. sitting the juices outside the unit, they were pretty damn serious
 
The obsession finally broke me down - I upgraded the 8 op amps in the amplifier (output) section.

I first installed machined gold plated sockets to avoid PCB damage if I ever want to change them again.

I replaced:
6 - JRC 5534DD with OPA134PA
2 - JRC 5532DD with OPA2134PA

The boards where simple to remove - 4 screws, 4 plugs and the output signal pairs were easily desoldered.

I sourced these at Newark / Element 14 electronics - on sale!

I can't compare the way it sounded before to the way it sounds now but I did compare it to my NAD CDP and it is noticeably superior to that.





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Do they build them like this? No. Do they build anything like they use to? Sadly, no.
 
wow

for comparison, a Yamaha CDX-1100U, another serious player. It weighs 31 lbs!
 

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I have it's little brother the PD-73 and it sounds wonderful. Also have one of the first stable platter players: the PD-75.

Both are built close to the same level as the PD-93 but are the next rung down on the ladder.

Now if I could just find a PD-93....
 
I've been using a PD-91 every night for years.It's never let me down,would love to own an even better PD-93.
Also would certainly agree,sadly they just don't build anything like they used to.
Quality has gone down the pan,don't think it will ever come back either in this digital throwaway/recycling age.
 
Notice how much effort was put into the Analog section. This is a very important part of any DAC and is sometimes overlooked. No amount of upsampling will provide great SQ without an equally good Analog section.

I doubt their recent PD-9 at about $1,500 is built like that, despite being nearly as heavy. But I had my friends unit over and it's one of the best CDP/SACD Players I've heard. It's been compared to a bunch of the big name CDP, including some more expensive tube ones, and the pioneer gives up nothing to them.

Its funny about build quality. My $800 22 lb Denon 1500II cdp had problems with the door after a year, it started getting finiky about what disc's it would play after a few years, and now it only played 70% of my CD's and the drawer won't open. Meanwhile my $80 Apex DVD Player, with way more hours on it continues to work as flawlessly as the day I brought it home. With it's excelent Video and DD5.1 sound It's frustrating how such a cheap piece of equipment can work so well. Go Figure!
 
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charles 1973 said:
Notice how much effort was put into the Analog section. This is a very important part of any DAC and is sometimes overlooked. No amount of upsampling will provide great SQ without an equally good Analog section.
Click to expand...

Yeah, especially those opamps. :scratch2:
 
That is amazing.There probably are a few company's that build to that level nowadays but it's gonna cost ya 4-5 grand at least.
 
This comes close. A Marantz cd 7
- 16.6kg, only the lid and side panels are more then 2kg together
- 2 x tda1541S2!
- two Motorola 56000 processors as a dsp for the DAC
- It can operate as a standalone DAC too. Working at up to 20bit, 48kHz oversampling.

Look at the analogue section and the caps around the two dacs!
 

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I love these old CDPs.Looking at them makes me wanna get one(of course I won't).I would keep the lid off and just look at them when their working:drool:
It's sad that they don't build them like that anymore.Too many ICs/chips that do the work of a hole board.
If only Pioneer/Sony made the laser pick-ups again....what a joy would be around the Hi-Fi community:banana::music:
 
That thing is built like a tank! How does it track? A guy I know has an Elite that looks to be around the same vintage. He purposely scratched up a CD with a nail and the darn thing still played. Pretty amazing.
 
mr.jones said:
That thing is built like a tank! How does it track? A guy I know has an Elite that looks to be around the same vintage. He purposely scratched up a CD with a nail and the darn thing still played. Pretty amazing.
Click to expand...
Have him send me that CD and I'll try.
 
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