Odd distortion from Pioneer BDP-51FD

Dennis Gardner

I have a terrible distortion (over saturation) only when playing CDs over HDMI. It happens at any volume. DVDs and BRs play fine, with good sound. I haven't tried the analog outputs yet, but know that the distortion is in the player, not any other part of my chain.

Anyone had something like this happen before?

cnh

Don't know what to say. I own that unit but I always use the Analog outs to play my CDs. Never had a problem with it, fingers crossed. Maybe you should try the analogs?

It might be possible that the player is set to "mulit-channel" output. There is something about that in the manual. But I've never experienced it.

Other members also run this and the sister 05 Elite model. Perhaps they will chime in here!

cnh

Dennis Gardner

I am only using the player to play CDs since my Marantz 8260 stopped reading discs, so I guess an Oppo is in my future.

Hermitism

Oh no! Not my beloved blu-ray player! I use the HDMI output, but have never had a single problem with the unit. Please don't hex my unit, I love that player. Could it be the HDMI cable? Is there an individual wire inside a HDMI cable that isn't used for movies, but is used for music? Probably not.

quicksilvergts

Not to hijack. Lol.
hopefully you got it figured out.
I am intetsted in one of these. hear much about load times which do not bother.
I just need a superior good video/audio source that is better than my ps3. Within budget.
Would you all say this BDP is great in video as well as the audio features? Still to this day?
I would really like one with a usb port, just not sure there is one in this price range and
Has similar features
Budget- $160(absolute max)

Cheers,

Dennis Gardner

Sorry for the late response. I really like the 51FD. I like everything that it does, but the load time is lengthy.

I found out what the distortion was too. It was actually in the Dolby Volume circuit on my Anthem MRX 300. I turn it on sometimes as a way to compress the dynamics for early morning or late night casual listening. I found out that the circuit even caused heavy doses of distortion from my TiVo listening to Pandora. As soon as I disabled the circuit, the clean sound was back. It doesn't distort on normal TV spoken content, but when something more complicated like music comes on, it distorts terribly.