This is a review and detailed measurements of the Pioneer PD-30 CD/SACD stereo player and transport.
After the Denon DCD-SA1, this is my second review of a CD/SACD player. I'm not much into SACD but I bought this one to correlate/compare results with the Denon DCD-SA1, so here you go with the review of that one.
It's "only" 12 years old, too young for me, so not what I'm usually interested in, but again, since I bought it to test, let's measure.
My first review of the Onkyo C-733 here contains information about my measurements so you can compare the devices I reviewed.
Pioneer PD-30 Presentation
I think it was released in 2012 and its price was reasonable, around 400$. It plays the CD audio (my interest), SACD and files from a USB key (but only WMA and MP3, and limited to 16bits). It can play DSF files from a DVD-R, which is cool too (but 2.8224Mhz only).
I like a lot the look of this player. Back panel shows the essential:
We get RCA analog out, and two standard coax and optical digital outputs. The latter will not output anything from an SACD, USB device or DSF files played from a DVD-R.
The published specs were the below:
The player is relatively basic in its functionalities and I like when it's simple. Let's have a quick look at the inside:
Power supply on the left, drive in the middle, servo and digital processing (and output) below the A/D card, under the black metallic cage that you see.
The DAC is an AK4480:
You can also see the usual 5532 AOP, shame we can't replace them easily for better sound (I'm kidding
)
The user experience is relatively bad, skipping a track is slow and annoying with my test CD containing 40+ tracks. But I suppose we get for what we pay and we get SACD, not speed. I did not test the USB entry since I only have WAV files, but results would have been the same.
Pioneer PD-30 - Measurements (Analog out)
The Pioneer PD-30 outputs 1.883Vrsm, and the two channels were perfectly matched (excellent). The analog outputs are non-inverting.
Here you go with the standard 1kHz sine @0dBFS (dithered) from my test CD (RCA out):
Left and right channels are shown but only one gets evaluated in that view. Both channels have nearly the same performances (1dB difference in THD). Note that left channel shows more low level random noise at the bottom of the test tone.
SINAD and ENOB are limited by the dithered noise of the test CD.
I add a view of a 1kHz @-6dBFS as I'm now doing for the other reviews:
The THD improved, which is always nice to see.
You probably already noticed that this player shows low level power supply–related spuriae in its output (-110dB at 50Hz and multiple harmonics):
I don’t like to see them, but I must admit it was impossible to hear them in standard utilization.
Let's continue with the bandwidth:
This is very flat and is confirmed by the below view taken from periodic white noise wide band analysis:
The oversampling filter is relatively sharp and attenuates by -70dB in the worst case. Stop band is at precise 24.1kHz. This view is an overlay with 18kHz & 20kHz tones and their aliases show at -80dBr (at 26.1kHz and 24.1kHz respectively). This is medium/low performance.
Multitone (1/10 decade) shows a happy player, not having issue to clear 16bits of data (hopefully for an SACD player):
I did not find trace of Jitter, but my previous test file was flawed and I did not have time yet to run again the test, I'll update soon.
Started with the Teac VRDS-20 review, and on your request + support to get it done (more here), I'm adding now an "intersample-overs" test which intends to identify the behavior of the digital filtering and DAC when it come to process near clipping signals. Because of the oversampling, there might be interpolated data that go above 0dBFS and would saturate (clip) the DAC and therefore the output. And this effect shows through distorsion (THD+N measurement up to 96kHz):
I kept some references and will keep the same for other reviews, so you can quickly compare. The results of the Pioneer PD-30 mean the oversampling filter has roughly 1dB headroom, which is good because it will prevent intersample-overs and therefore clipping where it's most likely to happen. The Yamaha CD-1 shines here because it's old enough not to have an oversampling filter.
Last but not least, my standard view of THD vs Frequency @-12dBFS:
I like this view because it shows older players having difficulties being linear already at this level. No issues here with a "modern" DAC, but you can see the raised distortion at low level, not a concern, but uncommon.
Pioneer PD-30 Measurements - Optical Out
We now got used to review CD players using their digital outputs, in case the results could be improved from an external DAC.
First the digital output (optical only) is as what we expect it to be, perfect :
When using an undithered 1kHz sine at -90.31dBFS, the signal should appear (on a scope) as the 3DC levels of the smallest sign magnitude digital signal in 16bits PCM, which is what we get with the Pioneer and demonstrating no fancy digital process at the output:
Pioneer PD-30 - Measurements (Analog outputs - From SACD)
For these tests, I used the Denon Audio Check SACD. There are only so few test tones on that disc, but it’s informative anyways.
The test SACD of Denon contains test tones at -16dBFS. It’s far from the 0dBFS that we (and I) are used to use, so it does not help for comparison.
But here you go with 1kHz @-16dBFS overlaid with 1kHz @-12dBFS from the CD Audio:
I kept this view in dBFS because unfortunately I did not have (yet) a test tone at -16dBFS on the CD Audio test to perform a direct comparison. So I used a -12dBFS test tone from CDA (with dither). I will need to update this view. But basically we get very little more when using an SACD as the noise level improves only by so few dB.
A different way to look at this is comparing the SACD test tone with one from 1kHz @-20dBFS and this time with shaped dither:
This view shows that the test tone from CD Audio with shaped dither (red trace) hits the same noise floor as the SACD test tone. So that's the limitation here, and it's at around -16.7bits, so we get only 1bit more of resolution with the SACD, and CD Audio can do the same with shaped dither (up to 6kHz only though).
Conclusion
This a good CD player but it does not really benefit from superior resolution of SACD. And with help of shaped dither, a CD Audio can chase the SACD here.
Unfortunately, being a low cost SACD means that we have to suffer a slow mechanism, not for much technical benefits, in my opinion, or maybe play SACD only discs (not having a CD layer, or not having the same master on their CD layer)?
The resistance to intersample-overs was a good surprise though, one to mention at least since it is the second best results I've seen.
I hope you enjoyed this review. I have recorded all tests, and I plan to do more in the future with my latest test CD. So feel free to ask for more, if you want.
Cheers.
--------
Flo
After the Denon DCD-SA1, this is my second review of a CD/SACD player. I'm not much into SACD but I bought this one to correlate/compare results with the Denon DCD-SA1, so here you go with the review of that one.
It's "only" 12 years old, too young for me, so not what I'm usually interested in, but again, since I bought it to test, let's measure.
My first review of the Onkyo C-733 here contains information about my measurements so you can compare the devices I reviewed.
Pioneer PD-30 Presentation
I think it was released in 2012 and its price was reasonable, around 400$. It plays the CD audio (my interest), SACD and files from a USB key (but only WMA and MP3, and limited to 16bits). It can play DSF files from a DVD-R, which is cool too (but 2.8224Mhz only).
I like a lot the look of this player. Back panel shows the essential:
We get RCA analog out, and two standard coax and optical digital outputs. The latter will not output anything from an SACD, USB device or DSF files played from a DVD-R.
The published specs were the below:
The player is relatively basic in its functionalities and I like when it's simple. Let's have a quick look at the inside:
Power supply on the left, drive in the middle, servo and digital processing (and output) below the A/D card, under the black metallic cage that you see.
The DAC is an AK4480:
You can also see the usual 5532 AOP, shame we can't replace them easily for better sound (I'm kidding
)The user experience is relatively bad, skipping a track is slow and annoying with my test CD containing 40+ tracks. But I suppose we get for what we pay and we get SACD, not speed. I did not test the USB entry since I only have WAV files, but results would have been the same.
Pioneer PD-30 - Measurements (Analog out)
The Pioneer PD-30 outputs 1.883Vrsm, and the two channels were perfectly matched (excellent). The analog outputs are non-inverting.
Here you go with the standard 1kHz sine @0dBFS (dithered) from my test CD (RCA out):
Left and right channels are shown but only one gets evaluated in that view. Both channels have nearly the same performances (1dB difference in THD). Note that left channel shows more low level random noise at the bottom of the test tone.
SINAD and ENOB are limited by the dithered noise of the test CD.
I add a view of a 1kHz @-6dBFS as I'm now doing for the other reviews:
The THD improved, which is always nice to see.
You probably already noticed that this player shows low level power supply–related spuriae in its output (-110dB at 50Hz and multiple harmonics):
I don’t like to see them, but I must admit it was impossible to hear them in standard utilization.
Let's continue with the bandwidth:
This is very flat and is confirmed by the below view taken from periodic white noise wide band analysis:
The oversampling filter is relatively sharp and attenuates by -70dB in the worst case. Stop band is at precise 24.1kHz. This view is an overlay with 18kHz & 20kHz tones and their aliases show at -80dBr (at 26.1kHz and 24.1kHz respectively). This is medium/low performance.
Multitone (1/10 decade) shows a happy player, not having issue to clear 16bits of data (hopefully for an SACD player):
I did not find trace of Jitter, but my previous test file was flawed and I did not have time yet to run again the test, I'll update soon.
Started with the Teac VRDS-20 review, and on your request + support to get it done (more here), I'm adding now an "intersample-overs" test which intends to identify the behavior of the digital filtering and DAC when it come to process near clipping signals. Because of the oversampling, there might be interpolated data that go above 0dBFS and would saturate (clip) the DAC and therefore the output. And this effect shows through distorsion (THD+N measurement up to 96kHz):
| Intersample-overs tests Bandwidth of the THD+N measurements is 20Hz - 96kHz | 5512.5 Hz sine, Peak = +0.69dBFS | 7350 Hz sine, Peak = +1.25dBFS | 11025 Hz sine, Peak = +3.0dBFS |
| Teac VRDS-20 | -30.7dB | -26.6dB | -17.6dB |
| Yamaha CD-1 (Non-Oversampling CD Player) | -79.6dB | -35.3dB | -78.1dB |
| Onkyo C-733 | -79.8dB | -29.4dB | -21.2dB |
| Pioneer PD-30 | -80dB | -29.4dB | -31.6dB |
I kept some references and will keep the same for other reviews, so you can quickly compare. The results of the Pioneer PD-30 mean the oversampling filter has roughly 1dB headroom, which is good because it will prevent intersample-overs and therefore clipping where it's most likely to happen. The Yamaha CD-1 shines here because it's old enough not to have an oversampling filter.
Last but not least, my standard view of THD vs Frequency @-12dBFS:
I like this view because it shows older players having difficulties being linear already at this level. No issues here with a "modern" DAC, but you can see the raised distortion at low level, not a concern, but uncommon.
Pioneer PD-30 Measurements - Optical Out
We now got used to review CD players using their digital outputs, in case the results could be improved from an external DAC.
First the digital output (optical only) is as what we expect it to be, perfect :
When using an undithered 1kHz sine at -90.31dBFS, the signal should appear (on a scope) as the 3DC levels of the smallest sign magnitude digital signal in 16bits PCM, which is what we get with the Pioneer and demonstrating no fancy digital process at the output:
Pioneer PD-30 - Measurements (Analog outputs - From SACD)
For these tests, I used the Denon Audio Check SACD. There are only so few test tones on that disc, but it’s informative anyways.
The test SACD of Denon contains test tones at -16dBFS. It’s far from the 0dBFS that we (and I) are used to use, so it does not help for comparison.
But here you go with 1kHz @-16dBFS overlaid with 1kHz @-12dBFS from the CD Audio:
I kept this view in dBFS because unfortunately I did not have (yet) a test tone at -16dBFS on the CD Audio test to perform a direct comparison. So I used a -12dBFS test tone from CDA (with dither). I will need to update this view. But basically we get very little more when using an SACD as the noise level improves only by so few dB.
A different way to look at this is comparing the SACD test tone with one from 1kHz @-20dBFS and this time with shaped dither:
This view shows that the test tone from CD Audio with shaped dither (red trace) hits the same noise floor as the SACD test tone. So that's the limitation here, and it's at around -16.7bits, so we get only 1bit more of resolution with the SACD, and CD Audio can do the same with shaped dither (up to 6kHz only though).
Conclusion
This a good CD player but it does not really benefit from superior resolution of SACD. And with help of shaped dither, a CD Audio can chase the SACD here.
Unfortunately, being a low cost SACD means that we have to suffer a slow mechanism, not for much technical benefits, in my opinion, or maybe play SACD only discs (not having a CD layer, or not having the same master on their CD layer)?
The resistance to intersample-overs was a good surprise though, one to mention at least since it is the second best results I've seen.
I hope you enjoyed this review. I have recorded all tests, and I plan to do more in the future with my latest test CD. So feel free to ask for more, if you want.
Cheers.
--------
Flo
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