Pioneer PDR-99 CD-player Review

I’ve worked with a number of professional compact disc recorders and several computer-peripheral CD recorders, but this is the first time I’ve gotten my hands on a consumer CD recorder. I am happy to report that the Pioneer PDR-99 is light years away from first-generation CD players in terms of its playback capabilities, and it successfully shatters the recordability barrier. Pioneer has overcome a multitude of political hesitations and at last introduced an affordable consumer product designed to play CD’s and record CD-R’s (write-once CD blanks).

A quick glance at the PDR-99 reassures you that it belongs in Pioneer’s Elite series. Its glossy black front panel and rosewood side panels, richer looking than a Rockefeller (or even a Gates), suggest a largesse of expert engineering inside. At first glance, though, you might mistake the PDR-99 for a simple player. All of the expected controls are there: power on/standby, drawer open/close, play, pause, stop, forward and reverse track search (audible manual forward and reverse scan when held down), and headphone level at the front-panel jack.

Closer inspection reveals the PDR-99’s more revolutionary aspects. An Input Selector button is used to select a fiber-optic or electrical (coaxial) digital input or a line-level analog input. When the Digital Synchro button is used for recording, the deck senses digital input signals, automatically enables recording, and pauses the recorder when the selected source program ends. Either individual tracks or all tracks can be dubbed from a CD or DAT; in either case, track numbers are automatically preserved in the recording. For nonsynchro recording, you start and stop the process manually using the pause button. A record-mute button inserts 4-second silent segments between recorded tracks. Two potentiometers, marked Record Balance and Record Level, are used only to set analog input levels; they don’t operate with the digital inputs.

There are two track-number buttons, marked Auto/Manual and (Manual) Write, and a small red LED associated with them. When you hit the Auto/Manual button, the LED lights up; you then press the (Manual) Write button whenever you want to insert a track number. If you hit the Auto/Manual button again, the LED goes out and the track numbers are automatically updated and recorded in sequence.

There are three track-skip ID buttons, marked Skip Play On/Off, Set, and Clear, that can be used to instruct a CD player to permanently skip over unwanted or spoiled tracks. The Skip Play On/Off button activates the skip function, then you use the track-search buttons to select the track to be skipped and the Set button to insert a skip marker for it. The Clear button cancels skip commands. Skip ID’s are stored permanently by pressing the disc-drawer open/close button. The Finalize button is used to write a Table of Contents so that a disc can be played on any CD player.

A large fluorescent display shows typical information, such as track numbers and timing, as well as specialized data for recording. For example, there are two bar-graph level meters, displays for sampling frequency, copy prohibition, and input type, and indicators that light when a pre-finalized CD-R disc is played and when recording is enabled. The display also helpfully flashes a large lexicon of messages such as INPUT CD, NEW DISC, REC FULL, PRO DISC, and FINAL? The Display Off button can be used to deactivate the display except when an operation button is pushed. Conveniently, if you hit the button during recording the remaining recording time is displayed.

All connections except the headphone jack are on the rear. There are four phono jacks for analog input and output. There are also two pairs of digital connectors, a pair of Toslink optical jacks (Digital 1) and a pair of coaxial jacks (Digital 2). A rear-panel control must be switched on to use either digital output and off to use the analog outputs. A pair of miniplug jacks can be used to connect a control cable between the PDR-99 and compatible Pioneer components, thereby allowing a remote-control signal received by one unit to be conveyed to other components in the sound system.

The supplied remote control duplicates many primary front-panel controls and adds a few extra features, including a button that initiates a 5-second fade-in or fade-out. The Program button can be used to set up a twenty-four-track playback sequence, and the Program Check and Clear buttons verify or delete programmed tracks. A time button displays elapsed and remaining time. There are also the random-play and repeat-play buttons that you’d find on any CD player as well as a numeric keypad.

It was with great expectation that I connected the PDR-99 to my home stereo system and started to learn its operation. As with other CD-R-format (Orange Book) recorders, the PDR-99 can play back all standard audio CD’s and all CD-R’s, even discs without the final Table of Contents. Tracks can be added (up to No. 99) to a partially finished disc until disc space runs out. In addition, skip ID’s can be set or cleared only before a recording is finalized. After the TOC is written, extra tracks cannot be added, and discs without a TOC cannot be played on an ordinary (Red Book) CD player. Once the TOC is written, the finalized disc can be played on any player. Because finalized and nonfinalized discs look the same, the PDR-99 has a CD-R indicator that lights when it’s playing a disc that is not finalized.

The PDR-99 automatically converts input sampling frequencies of 32 or 48 kHz to the CD standard of 44.1 kHz. The analog-to-digital (A/D) converter employs 1-bit technology, the approach used almost universally in today’s digital components; it gives better results than all but the most expensive multibit converters. The 1-bit digital-to-analog (D/A) converter employs Pioneer’s Legato-Link Conversion S circuitry, which is said to psycho-acoustically restore frequency content lost in digital recording. A newly developed three-beam pickup with differential push-pull circuitry is also employed. The transport uses Pioneer’s stable-platter design, in which the disc rests entirely on the platter surface to minimize vibrations, and a motor that is said to reduce rotational fluctuations. Because of that design, discs must be loaded label-side down.

The PDR-99 was righteous on the test bench during both recording and playback. I measured playback response using standard test discs. The Legato Link circuitry tinkers with the frequency response, in this case resulting in a designed dip in playback response to -0.88 dB at 10 kHz, rising to -0.26 db at 20 kHz. Measurements of dynamic range and signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) verified that noise was quite low — roughly 90 dB below full scale with A-weighting. Distortion levels were pretty good, and the D/A linearity error was reasonably low. The pickup was excellent at tracking through errors and successfully negotiated the largest (4,000-micrometer) defect on my test disc.

I measured record/playback response by recording test signals through the A/D converters. (Clearly, copying my test discs through the digital inputs would have simply produced clones of the discs, resulting in numbers identical to those found in measuring playback response.) The A/D converters were quite good. Dynamic range and S/N approached 90 dB, and THD+N was similar to the playback measurements except that it rose somewhat at -20-dB levels. The A/D to D/A linearity error remained low at +1.3 dB. The maximum interchannel phase shift and de-emphasis error were also low. In other words, the trip through the A/D converters did not pose significant problems. (Still, you’d want to use the digital inputs whenever possible.)

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