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.
EDIT: If yo own this player, twist the secondary cable like this (see below, in the review, why):
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)
All measurements performed with a Cosmos E1AD (grade G) and the Cosmos Scaler (100kohms from unbalanced input).
I am now consistent with my specific measurements for CD Players, as I described them in the post “More than we hear”, and as I reported them for the Onkyo C-733 review. Over time, this will help comparing the devices I reviewed.
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 999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (undithered) 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).
I add a view the same 999.91Hz @-6dBFS:
The THD improved, which is always nice to see. The noise decreased by 1dB which means this player does not enjoy playing full scale tones.
We can see some lateral spikes around the fundamental (at 900Hz and 800Hz), indicating an interaction with the power supply (50Hz in Europe). It is below -120dBr, so we can ignore them here.
EDIT: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.
On the recommendations of @AnalogSteph and @Sokel, I twisted the long secondary cable that goes to the conversion board, and that resolved the issue. So the real view is this one:
No power supply issue anymore. If you have this player, do the same! Note the spikes at 900Hz and 800Hz which I already mentioned.
----
Let's continue with the bandwidth:
This is very flat and we can see that the two channels are perfectly matched.
The below view shows how the oversampling filter filter works, and is taken from periodic white noise:
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 in today's standards.
----
Multitone (1/10 decade) shows a happy player, not having issue to clear 16bits of data (hopefully for an SACD player):
This is as good as it can get with CD Audio.
----
I did not find trace of Jitter, but a surprising high noise floor on that test:
No lateral spikes can be seen, which is good, but there's a lot more than usual low level random noise here. This is what limits the real resolution of this player. I guess Pioneer wanted to leave some room for improvements to their other higher level players.
----
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 more than 2dB headroom, which is very good and will largely prevent intersample-overs and therefore clipping where it's most likely to happen. That is a good surprise.
----
Let's continue with the good old 3DC measurement that Stereophile was often using as a proof of low noise DAC. It is from an undithered 997Hz sine at -90.31dBFS. With 16bits, the signal should appear (on a scope) as the 3DC levels of the smallest symmetrical sign magnitude digital signal:
That is a good trace, we can clearly see the 3DC levels with not so much noise. The ringing is due to the Gibbs Phenomenon and the reconstruction filter.
----
Other measurements (not shown):
The crosstalk is very good because the DAC not receiving any signal shuts down. I need to update my test file to prevent that.
All that said, these results, even if very good, are a little below the first 1bit DAC from Sony, as I measured in the Sony CDP-X333ES. Few decades of no evolution, or maybe it's just because it was unnecessary to be that good to start with
The pitch error test shows a precise clock with only 4.5ppm deviation.
----
You might know that it is now possible to go below the theoretical resolution of 16bits of the CD Audio, using a technique that is called noise shaping. This a mathematical process to reduce the quantization errors due to the format (only 16bits) and spread these errors in a smart manner so the actual resolution can be increased where it matters for our ears. The below is an FFT of the same 999.91Hz Sine test tone at full scale (0dBFS), with shape dither. To process and calculate what the player is capable in terms of resolution, I reduce the span to 20Hz - 6000Hz, instead of the standard 20Hz - 20kHz, to prevent adding the noise generated at the higher frequencies. I added the result with the Denon DCD-900NE as a reference:
Reducing the span allows the software to compute a theoretical ENOB, which is very real to our ears. With shape dither, the Denon can achieve 18.2bits of virtual resolution, while we see the true limits of the Pioneers at 16.3bits. This is disappointing but is due to the fact that this player is not at ease with full scale tones. At -6dBFS, the Pioneer shows a 17.7bits, and that is due to both the distorsion and especially the noise going down.
----
Last but not least, my standard view of THD vs Frequency @-12dBFS:
Since I am currently using the beta version of REW which is obviously more precise in that test, I overlaid two other references, the recent Denon DCD-900NE and the very old Denon DCD-3560.
I like this view because it shows older players having difficulties being linear already at this level. No issues here with a "modern" DAC. The Pioneer does very well in that test. As a matter of facts, when the signal decreases, the distorsion and noise generated be the player decrease too, hence the very good results.
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.
The precision of the clock (4.5ppm) helped getting very good stability in the below measurements.
First the digital output (optical only) is as what we expect it to be, perfect (1kHz @0dBFS with 1LSB dither):
When using an undithered 1kHz sine at -90.31dBFS, the signal should appear (on a scope) as the 3DC levels of the smallest symmetrical sign magnitude digital signal in 16bits PCM, which is what we get with the Pioneer and demonstrating no fancy digital process at the output:
The digital output is not modified, as far I can test.
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.
That's the reason why I added -16dBFS test files on my test CD, so I can now compare.
So, this is below the 1kHz test file from the Denon SACD test Disc:
And this is my test file (that means from CD Audio, 999.91Hz @-16dBFS) with shape dither, to lower the noise floor before 5kHz:
The traces are very close in terms of visual noise floor. My test file does better in THD, so I guess the one of the Denon contains a little, it's not the player's fault. Forget about the Noise calculation with Shape Dither, it is bad because of the noise after 6kHz which is put there by the noise shaping process, where we are unlikely to hear it.
In the end, the max resolution of this player is a little less than 18bit, and that is because of the noise floor.
Pioneer PD-30 - Testing the drive
What would be good measurements if the drive would not properly read a slightly scratched CD, or one that was created at the limits of the norm? The below tests reply to these questions.
The drive was able to consistently continue playing, without generating typical digital clicks, with dropouts of up to 2.4mm. The interpolation effect remained hidden to my ears when it kicked-off but failed to maintain a constant flow at 4mm as it skipped few seconds of the test track. It had no issue playing a track with 3mm dropouts, even is few clicks could be heard. The Pioneer had no issue with variable linear velocity and/or track pitch, as well as with HF detection.
These results are among the best I measured. You can drill a small hole into a CD without making it stop playing music, good boy
Conclusion
This a good CD player. It does not really benefit from the superior resolution of the SACD, as with the help of shape dither, a CD Audio can chase the SACD here.
Unfortunately, being a low cost SACD means that we have to suffer a slow mechanism, but a crazy good resistance to scratched CDs, and I think the latter is much more to appreciate than the former, at the end of the day.
The resistance to intersample-overs was a good surprise. And even if when playing high level tones increases the noise floor, it is very low and will remain hidden into music.
I think this is a very good and cheap CD/SACD player, and I can recommend it.
I hope you enjoyed this review.
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.
EDIT: If yo own this player, twist the secondary cable like this (see below, in the review, why):
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)
All measurements performed with a Cosmos E1AD (grade G) and the Cosmos Scaler (100kohms from unbalanced input).
I am now consistent with my specific measurements for CD Players, as I described them in the post “More than we hear”, and as I reported them for the Onkyo C-733 review. Over time, this will help comparing the devices I reviewed.
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 999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (undithered) 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).
I add a view the same 999.91Hz @-6dBFS:
The THD improved, which is always nice to see. The noise decreased by 1dB which means this player does not enjoy playing full scale tones.
We can see some lateral spikes around the fundamental (at 900Hz and 800Hz), indicating an interaction with the power supply (50Hz in Europe). It is below -120dBr, so we can ignore them here.
EDIT:
On the recommendations of @AnalogSteph and @Sokel, I twisted the long secondary cable that goes to the conversion board, and that resolved the issue. So the real view is this one:
No power supply issue anymore. If you have this player, do the same! Note the spikes at 900Hz and 800Hz which I already mentioned.
----
Let's continue with the bandwidth:
This is very flat and we can see that the two channels are perfectly matched.
The below view shows how the oversampling filter filter works, and is taken from periodic white noise:
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 in today's standards.
----
Multitone (1/10 decade) shows a happy player, not having issue to clear 16bits of data (hopefully for an SACD player):
This is as good as it can get with CD Audio.
----
I did not find trace of Jitter, but a surprising high noise floor on that test:
No lateral spikes can be seen, which is good, but there's a lot more than usual low level random noise here. This is what limits the real resolution of this player. I guess Pioneer wanted to leave some room for improvements to their other higher level players.
----
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 | -84.6dB | -84.9dB | -78.1dB |
| Denon DCD-900NE | -34.2dB | -27.1dB | -19.1dB |
| Denon DCD-SA1 | -33.6dB | -27.6dB | -18.3dB |
| Onkyo C-733 | -88.3dB | -40.4dB | -21.2dB |
| Denon DCD-3560 | -30.2dB | -24.7dB | -17.4dB |
| Myryad Z210 | -70.6dB (noise dominated) | -71.1dB (noise dominated) | -29.4dB (H3 dominated) |
| Sony CDP-x333ES | -30.5dB | -24.8dB | -16.3dB |
| Pioneer PD-30 | -88.8dB | -78.1dB | -31.3dB |
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 more than 2dB headroom, which is very good and will largely prevent intersample-overs and therefore clipping where it's most likely to happen. That is a good surprise.
----
Let's continue with the good old 3DC measurement that Stereophile was often using as a proof of low noise DAC. It is from an undithered 997Hz sine at -90.31dBFS. With 16bits, the signal should appear (on a scope) as the 3DC levels of the smallest symmetrical sign magnitude digital signal:
That is a good trace, we can clearly see the 3DC levels with not so much noise. The ringing is due to the Gibbs Phenomenon and the reconstruction filter.
----
Other measurements (not shown):
- IMD AES-17 DFD "Analog" (18kHz & 20kHz 1:1) : -90.8dB
- IMD AES-17 DFD "Digital" (17'987Hz & 19'997Hz 1:1) : -97.8dB
- IMD AES-17 MD (41Hz & 7993Hz 4:1): -92.1dB
- IMD CCIF (19kHz & 20kHz 1:1) : -97.4dB
- IMD DIN (250Hz & 8kHz 4:1) : -89.5dB
- IMD SMPTE (60Hz & 7kHz 1:4) : -89.8dB
- IMD TDFD Bass (41Hz & 89Hz 1:1) : -105.8dB
- IMD TDFD (13'58Hz & 19841Hz 1:1) : -104.5dB
- Dynamic Range : 98.5dB (without dither @-60dBFS)
- Crosstalk: -130dBr (100Hz), -128dBr (1khz), -121dBr (10kHz)
- Pitch Error : 19'996.91Hz (19'997Hz requested) ie 4.5ppm
- Gapless playback : Yes
The crosstalk is very good because the DAC not receiving any signal shuts down. I need to update my test file to prevent that.
All that said, these results, even if very good, are a little below the first 1bit DAC from Sony, as I measured in the Sony CDP-X333ES. Few decades of no evolution, or maybe it's just because it was unnecessary to be that good to start with
The pitch error test shows a precise clock with only 4.5ppm deviation.
----
You might know that it is now possible to go below the theoretical resolution of 16bits of the CD Audio, using a technique that is called noise shaping. This a mathematical process to reduce the quantization errors due to the format (only 16bits) and spread these errors in a smart manner so the actual resolution can be increased where it matters for our ears. The below is an FFT of the same 999.91Hz Sine test tone at full scale (0dBFS), with shape dither. To process and calculate what the player is capable in terms of resolution, I reduce the span to 20Hz - 6000Hz, instead of the standard 20Hz - 20kHz, to prevent adding the noise generated at the higher frequencies. I added the result with the Denon DCD-900NE as a reference:
Reducing the span allows the software to compute a theoretical ENOB, which is very real to our ears. With shape dither, the Denon can achieve 18.2bits of virtual resolution, while we see the true limits of the Pioneers at 16.3bits. This is disappointing but is due to the fact that this player is not at ease with full scale tones. At -6dBFS, the Pioneer shows a 17.7bits, and that is due to both the distorsion and especially the noise going down.
----
Last but not least, my standard view of THD vs Frequency @-12dBFS:
Since I am currently using the beta version of REW which is obviously more precise in that test, I overlaid two other references, the recent Denon DCD-900NE and the very old Denon DCD-3560.
I like this view because it shows older players having difficulties being linear already at this level. No issues here with a "modern" DAC. The Pioneer does very well in that test. As a matter of facts, when the signal decreases, the distorsion and noise generated be the player decrease too, hence the very good results.
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.
The precision of the clock (4.5ppm) helped getting very good stability in the below measurements.
First the digital output (optical only) is as what we expect it to be, perfect (1kHz @0dBFS with 1LSB dither):
When using an undithered 1kHz sine at -90.31dBFS, the signal should appear (on a scope) as the 3DC levels of the smallest symmetrical sign magnitude digital signal in 16bits PCM, which is what we get with the Pioneer and demonstrating no fancy digital process at the output:
The digital output is not modified, as far I can test.
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.
That's the reason why I added -16dBFS test files on my test CD, so I can now compare.
So, this is below the 1kHz test file from the Denon SACD test Disc:
And this is my test file (that means from CD Audio, 999.91Hz @-16dBFS) with shape dither, to lower the noise floor before 5kHz:
The traces are very close in terms of visual noise floor. My test file does better in THD, so I guess the one of the Denon contains a little, it's not the player's fault. Forget about the Noise calculation with Shape Dither, it is bad because of the noise after 6kHz which is put there by the noise shaping process, where we are unlikely to hear it.
In the end, the max resolution of this player is a little less than 18bit, and that is because of the noise floor.
Pioneer PD-30 - Testing the drive
What would be good measurements if the drive would not properly read a slightly scratched CD, or one that was created at the limits of the norm? The below tests reply to these questions.
| Test type | Technical test | Results |
| Variation of linear cutting velocity | From 1.20m/s to 1.40m/s | Pass |
| Variation of track pitch | From 1.5µm to 1.7µm | Pass |
| Combined variations of track pitch and velocity | From 1.20m/s & 1.5µm to 1.40m/s & 1.7µm | Pass |
| HF detection (asymmetry pitch/flat ratio) | Variation from 2% to 18% | Pass |
| Dropouts resistance | From 0.05mm (0.038ms) to 4mm (3.080ms) | Up to 2.5mm. |
| Combined dropouts and smallest pitch | From 1.5µm & 1mm to 1.5µm & 2.4mm | Pass |
| Successive dropouts | From 2x0.1mm to 2x3mm | Up to 2.4mm. |
The drive was able to consistently continue playing, without generating typical digital clicks, with dropouts of up to 2.4mm. The interpolation effect remained hidden to my ears when it kicked-off but failed to maintain a constant flow at 4mm as it skipped few seconds of the test track. It had no issue playing a track with 3mm dropouts, even is few clicks could be heard. The Pioneer had no issue with variable linear velocity and/or track pitch, as well as with HF detection.
These results are among the best I measured. You can drill a small hole into a CD without making it stop playing music, good boy
Conclusion
This a good CD player. It does not really benefit from the superior resolution of the SACD, as with the help of shape dither, a CD Audio can chase the SACD here.
Unfortunately, being a low cost SACD means that we have to suffer a slow mechanism, but a crazy good resistance to scratched CDs, and I think the latter is much more to appreciate than the former, at the end of the day.
The resistance to intersample-overs was a good surprise. And even if when playing high level tones increases the noise floor, it is very low and will remain hidden into music.
I think this is a very good and cheap CD/SACD player, and I can recommend it.
I hope you enjoyed this review.
Cheers.
--------
Flo
Last edited:
