Pioneer PD-5010 CD player with pics - my first vintage unit

[Fletch]

Found a Pioneer PD-5010 (1985) at the flea market today. Got lucky with some people who just wanted to get rid of some stuff. By the time I got there this was one of the few items left. It was ugly, full of dirt, dust, what looked like duct tape residue(always a good sign), and a bent plug. How much I ask? $2 - well now that's the right price. So after pluggin it in and fidning that it actually powered up I spent 30 minutes cleaning the mess. Poor unit only payed the first track and it didn't do that very well either. Seemed likely to be a loose belt which it was. After an hour of racking my head for where I saw that tiny little belt that one day........my memory fails me at times.

Regardless, I found it, it was just the right size, I reassembled without any extra parts(bonus!), and hit play. Seemd to work well but now I hear some issues. Sounds like the CD is scuffing across something as it's spinning. Any ideas with this one? Anyway here's a pic of the unit:

Nice unit but so far I still like my PS1.

 

[PheonixRisin]

I have the same CD player in my dorm room a PD-5010 the one i acquired seemed to be in better condition than yours, but they are old tough units. When the cd goes in two things happen that might leave you with a scuff sound. 1 it has 4 blue things on springs that fall away when cd goes in if one did not go all the way down then that might cause it. or the gray thing that sits ontop of the cd maybe no spinning well and scuffing against top of cd.

 

[MisterFishey]

I've found that with some vintage CDPs, usually JVC units, the clamp on top of the CD isn't putting enough weight on it, causing the CD to move, and cause a shuffling sound. That problem can be easily tested by carefully taping down a small coin (dime, then penny, then nickel, then quarter) on the top, to add just a tiny bit more weight to hold down the CD, but not enough to stop the drive motor from spinning. It's a delicate balance. Try it, you have nothing to lose.

 

[ctcapone]

Cool Beans! I have one as well purchased it back in 1985 it's currently connected to a Pioneer QX-747 locked in 2 Channel mode. I have tape monitor 1 connected to my computer so I can tranfer my records and tapes to CD.

 

[Mr. Lin]

Cool man, enjoy!

 

[violao]

I was an audio sales rep at Silo in 1985 and the PD-5010 was the very first player that I owned. IIRC MSRP was $400, the street retail price was about $300-350, and my cost was $185. Pioneer Electronics was fairly generous back then because they wanted the sales reps to own what we sold. There was no minute display on this model because this was one of the earliest models even available to purchase. As a reality check, $300 is the equivalent of about $850 in today's money. And the first CD players to arrive in our lives were, as we would say at Microsoft "practical magic". That was a turntable with a remote control and the fidelity boost blew our socks off.

Mind you, I was minted in 1963 along with my twin brother. We grew up in the middle of Beatlemania, and we made mix tapes off of live radio on our father's hi-fi reel-to-reel tape recorder when we were about 7 yo. All we knew were radio, LPs, and reel-to-reel tapes. And eventually, cassettes, which like MP3s won out mainly because of convenience. But when CD players came on the scene at more affordable prices, it was just an explosion. I will always remember the very first CD that I ever purchased. It was at Tower Records where my GF worked next door to Silo Electronics. That disc was Thomas Dolby's "Flat Earth" which was quite prescient given his lyrical narrative. I still own that CD after about 1600 other CDs later added to my collection. I am pretty sure I bought that disc a few years before I even owned a CD player because they were a bit dear in price to own.

The best allegory for the arrival of the CD player is perhaps the release of the iPhone 3GS which is when just about everyone had to own one.

Looping back to this Pioneer PD-5010, yup, I owned one and also sold a ton of them too. I played the hell out of mine and also recorded a lot of cassettes for my car off of it as well. But sadly, it did not last as long as I might of hoped. It gave up the ghost quite quickly within a few years. My next purchase was a Technics unit that was a generation ahead with slick time minutes displays and also A-B repeat which was an amazing feature for musicians like me. That player also sort of checked out early too. My next and final CD-only player was my JVC 7-Disc player (6-disc cartridge+1 disc). It was great for multiple magazine cartridge loading and also had the convenience of a single player. After that, it has been a parade of DVD players that just act as a disc transport into my receiver's DAC. Frankly, my 100GB iTunes music library seems to be winning the day for playback. If I am going to me arse playing a disc, it is probably gonna be an LP in my modest 400 LP record collection. I still love the tactile feel of putting on an LP.

 

[JSanders2056]

Gotta love a zombie thread.
I bought one of these after standing in line at the MN State Fairgrounds for a big sale, it had to be '85. It was a massive "cattle call", I had worked the 3rd shift, got off and cued up in line. Highly unlikely to occur today. People just RAN through the doors when they were thrown open. It was my first Pioneer of any sort and I still have it.
I am currently searching for a new CD player for a second system, but I'll pull this out and see if it still works. It's been sealed in a bin, climate-controlled environment...let's hope my luck holds. My older Technics TT fired right up and it was stored next to this unit

 

[2kpounders!]

i still have my original that i bought in 1986 and an extras for parts if ever needed, i took that original player around the globe in my military days. had it freshened up last year for many years to come