Pioneer PD-D9 SACD player

[Κώστας Φ.]

"Inside the PD-D9 you will find twin Wolfson DACs: the same digital-to-analogue converter that EAR/Yoshino uses in its £2,700 Acute CD player. As the Pioneer is both a CD and SACD player, it has a version of this chip that avoids turning the DSD bit-stream into CD-style PCM before conversion.

The majority of affordable SACD players (and even some luxury models) compromise results with the high resolution format by converting it digitally prior to DA conversion. Essentially, what Pioneer has done is kept the signal path for SACD as straightforward as it is for CD.

The Wolfson converter upsamples CD's 16/44.1 data rate to 24/192 and you have the option of applying Pioneer's Legato Link processing to the signal. For maximum sonic bliss, one is encouraged to press the 'pure audio' mode button, this actually shuts down the digital output and defeats the backlit LCD, while illuminating a red LED on the front panel."

For

• Strong performer
• Robust build
• Fair price

Against

• Not the most attractive to look at

Verdict
A very nicely put together player with dynamic, well paced and nicely proportioned sound, the Pioneer deserves to be on any sub-thousand-pound disc player shortlist. And it does a fine job with SACD, too.



Full Review: tech.co.uk (Hi-Fi Choice)