Pioneer PD-91
(1987 - 1990)

Worldwide version of the japanese PD-3000, built as lavishly as can be and from the last days of hifi's golden years.
If the 18bit digital-to-analogue converters are now a bit dated, the mechanical integrity and minutious care of the smallest details are, today, completely unbelievable: all-copper chassis, non-resonating honeycomb plates, eleven regulators and sixteen power supplies, copper/resin laminated mechanism base, large magnetic disc clamper, wear-resistant loading tray - and more.
It should be noted that the japanese original (PD-3000) sports a completely different audio board and has two external power transformers - I don't know if this is related to Pioneer's hesitation between its own d/a chips or Burr-Brown's for the PD-91 and PD-93... Both ended up with Pioneer's own converters - but maybe not in Japan ?

Anyway - only Philips in Japan (LHH series), Sony and Pioneer kept so consistant with the build-quality of their digital sources throughout the 1980s and 1990s. All this is now gone and CD itself might even vanish in the almost forseeable future... But the PD-91 and its PD-5000 later elder (aka PD-93) are good reminders of a time when true craftsmanship still was part of this industry. The PD-93 remained Stereoplay's reference player for a long while, only to be dislodged from that spot by Sony's 1bit CDP-X777ES in 1992.

Click the buttons below for the technical details and scroll this page to the right, too !
You may also read Jon Marks' review of the PD-91 in the january issue of Hi-Fi Choice (UK) !