Pioneer BDP-05FD & Onkyo DX-7555
jon s
Posts: 905
well, some of you might figure, huh??? One of these is a Blu-Ray player (the Pioneer) and the other is a CD player (the Onkyo)... but this review is about their CD capabilities...
I have a number of CD players, some pretty well regarded... the Sony CDP-X779ES, the Denon DVD-3930CI and the Stereophile rated Marantz SA-8260. As CD players go, each new model was a bit better than the previous one.
I recently purchased a Pioneer BDP-05FD Blu-Ray player for my HT and was pleasantly surprised at the audio quality from the analog outputs. The Wolfson DACs are impressive. The sound imaging was a notable step up from any other CD player I used. To verify, I also purchased an Onkyo DX-7555 CD player (used and real cheap) and also experienced the same improvement in sound quality. There is a better sense of depth from the Wolfson equipped players than from the other players. To get the last bit of performance, the Onkyo allows you to disable the digital section of the player and run strictly analog to reduce any spurious noise from unneeded circuitry. Add to that is a filter to reduce the "sharpness" settings. This apparently tapers of the high end a bit and gives better phase response. You can also adjust the clock settings to reduce jitter (altho i admittedly could not discern any effects with this setting).
Overall I am very impressed with the two players. The only quibble I have is that neither player supports SACD formats.
Regarding the Pioneer as a blu-ray player... I find the Pioneer to be one of the best BR players out there... unbelievable image and sound, beating my PS3 in finer detail and dimension. however one shud be aware that the Pioneer suffers from a buggy firmware which was very unreliable and flaky (with updates before 1.17) but now seems a bit more stable but with some issues unresolved. DTS-MA is not available yet (supposedly available with a firmware update in the next quarter (spring 2009?). Last but not least, it is the slowest player of the current generation players. While a lot faster than first generation players, it still takes about a minute to play a disc, but the performance of the unit still outweighs the outstanding issues.
I have a number of CD players, some pretty well regarded... the Sony CDP-X779ES, the Denon DVD-3930CI and the Stereophile rated Marantz SA-8260. As CD players go, each new model was a bit better than the previous one.
I recently purchased a Pioneer BDP-05FD Blu-Ray player for my HT and was pleasantly surprised at the audio quality from the analog outputs. The Wolfson DACs are impressive. The sound imaging was a notable step up from any other CD player I used. To verify, I also purchased an Onkyo DX-7555 CD player (used and real cheap) and also experienced the same improvement in sound quality. There is a better sense of depth from the Wolfson equipped players than from the other players. To get the last bit of performance, the Onkyo allows you to disable the digital section of the player and run strictly analog to reduce any spurious noise from unneeded circuitry. Add to that is a filter to reduce the "sharpness" settings. This apparently tapers of the high end a bit and gives better phase response. You can also adjust the clock settings to reduce jitter (altho i admittedly could not discern any effects with this setting).
Overall I am very impressed with the two players. The only quibble I have is that neither player supports SACD formats.
Regarding the Pioneer as a blu-ray player... I find the Pioneer to be one of the best BR players out there... unbelievable image and sound, beating my PS3 in finer detail and dimension. however one shud be aware that the Pioneer suffers from a buggy firmware which was very unreliable and flaky (with updates before 1.17) but now seems a bit more stable but with some issues unresolved. DTS-MA is not available yet (supposedly available with a firmware update in the next quarter (spring 2009?). Last but not least, it is the slowest player of the current generation players. While a lot faster than first generation players, it still takes about a minute to play a disc, but the performance of the unit still outweighs the outstanding issues.