see above

see above

smooth, warm, correctly detailed sound; excellent midbass, nice midrange with good bass and high frequencies extention
great dynamic in sound and a bit lack of airy presentation for the best cd player i never heard at its price and two or three times over

there are 10 years i got it and i bought it used

to upgrade it add a d/a external audio converter aroud ten times its price

it absolutely needs a high end system and a silver interconnect cable to right rating

Similar Products Used:

marantz cd63se, teac vrds10, marantz cd6000ose, sony dvd/cd/sacd player, cambridge audio, classé audio cdp10, proceed 2 and 3 t+d/a, cec 5100 t+d/a, arc cd1 and many more now i don't remember

see above

see above

smooth, warm, correctly detailed sound; excellent midbass, nice midrange with good bass and high frequencies extention
great dynamic in sound and a bit lack of airy presentation for the best cd player i never heard at its price and two or three times over

there are 10 years i got it and i bought it used

to upgrade it add a d/a external audio converter aroud ten times its price

it absolutely needs a high end system and a silver interconnect cable to right rating

Similar Products Used:

marantz cd63se, teac vrds10, marantz cd6000ose, sony dvd/cd/sacd player, cambridge audio, classé audio cdp10, proceed 2 and 3 t+d/a, cec 5100 t+d/a, arc cd1 and many more now i don't remember

I agree with Per Engstom's review. I also have had it for a year ot two and it has no major faults. A good player simply...

Good build, relaxing style

A bit muffly

I work in a hifi store where this is on constantly. The build quality is exemplary and I have ahad a lot of happy customers going away with them because of the unremarkable sound. I would however recommend the pds505precision if you can find a good deal on one. New price is about £460 but I got mine for £240 and it thrashes the 904!

Similar Products Used:

Kenwood Dp4090, Teac Cdp3450se

Bombproof build quality and reliability (6 yrs of regular use and still faultless)
"Stable Platter" transport preserves your CD's and extracts lots of detail.

Slight lack of bass definition

A good quality piece of kit which performs well. I've used it almost daily for six years and it still looks like new and performs brilliantly.

The Stable Platter mechanism is fantastic and preserves your CD collection by not dumping the (often still spinning) disc, playing side down, onto an abrasive plastic tray every time you eject the disc. Instead the disc glides smoothly out of the player, label side down on a turntable.

The player extracts breathtaking midrange detail from the CD, with the listener almost able to "feel" plucked guitar strings, fret movements and female vocals. Treble is open too, with only the bass definition sometimes letting the side down. Fast moving bass guitar or electronic dance stuff can lose definition and clarity. I used an external Audio Alchemy DAC for a while which cured this, again proving the quality of the Pioneer transport.

After six years it shows no signs of breaking down and is still capable of providing an engaging listen. For the money, I haven't heard anything noticeably better.

Similar Products Used:

Kenwood DP-2030
Pioneer PDS-703

This is a good player and I have enjoyed it for a year or so.But it has one flaw and that is the bass, it has the attack and stomp but there´s no detail.

Just to spent a few notes on the PD-S904. I have got mine for 3 years and still am thinking about an upgrading. For its price (here it is for $450)it is one of the best buys. Manufacturing quality is superb, very well designed, only necessary controls on the fascia (gold version looks high-end-like) and owns no more functions than you ever need.I am running it presently with my system of Accuphase E210A amp, Dynaudio Contour 1.1 speakers, OCOS black speaker cables and the terrible shoe-lace-like interconnects switched now and then for Monster Interlink 300. Maybe this is due to the associated gear but:
The treble is very subtle, yet detailed, producing no fatigue to ear. Perhaps too subtle, it reminds of an analogue source. Mids are very good, very smooth and easily flowing. What troubles me is the bass. It's deep enough (you will hardly find a similarly priced player with such a deep bass extension) but it lacks detail and resolution a bit. I would prefer the Pioneer to be on the lighter side with more detail. However, the imaging is superb (both front-to-back and left-to-right) not limited with speaker positioning. Again, with the above gear.
My experience says - tweak it, tweak it! Moreover, many of the renowned manufacturers base their products on the Pioneer chassis. Namely, Trichord remakes PD-S904 into their Revelation (?)and so does Acoustic Precision with their Eikos for kilobucks. The reverse transport is probably worth accolades.
There is no much room to improve if you are not into electronics. The inside of the player is full (really full) of PCBs and facilities. What can be improved with an immediate effect is damping the cover wherever possible (when you knock at the upper cover, it resonates pretty good, does it?). So glue a rubber/bitumen/copper/silicon plates on it. Tighten all screws. Insert a silicon padding between metal-to-metal joints. And remove the terrible malfunctioning feet - if you put just pieces of foamy material instead it you will get better imaging and bass is more tight. And enjoy the music!

I have owned mine for 2 years and have found it superb in a word, one thing with it tho there is a fair amount of grainyness in the optical output much better to run a decent set of analog cables (ie monster @ $400 NZ a pair) to get the most from the player, i have found the bass as detailed as anything else i have heard, but throw away those standard cables they are bad on the ears.
not as user freindly or function laden as some sonys i can think of and why cant they put the time button on the damn remote, both yamaha and pioneer do this all the time!, but in the end it comes down to sound and that is where this player kicks ass. Especially when something with subsonic bass and lots of it is being played.

The best i have owned yet, and i'm hanging on to it :)

bass,reliability

i`ve had this player since 97` and performed brilliantly in music and has given many years of musical enjoyment yet has been the most unreliable cd player that i have used.And just today the cd draw has packed up.Musically satisfying yes, longevity give it a miss.

Similar Products Used:

marantz cd60se, technics various

Can find it really cheap now discontinued. Good quality Legato Link S-DAC and transport. Excellent canvas for upgrading.

Build quality - resonates badly. Can sound a bit muddled and poorly defined if not tweaked.

This is a machine I've had for a while now and will probably stick with until it breaks. The reason I'm writing the review is because I've seen this model advertised for as little as $150 brand new because it's discontinued. I think that buying this machine and upgrading it will result in a superior player to anything currently available under $750, and for far less money. It also works well with the Pioneer A-300R Precision amplifier which I've also seen for $150 brand new - talk about a bargain system!

The 904 formed the basis of the Acousitc Precision Eikos, a highly regarded high-end CD player. Although the majority of the improvements were expensive and electronic, you can get some ideas of how to easily improve the basic model for the technologically challenged like myself. I agree with Martin that the casework resonates badly and the feet are dreadful and need urgent attention. The Eikos has a heavily damped body and transport and I tried the same idea on mine by using ISO self-adhesive damping pads. These pads are really easy to apply and have a thickish aluminium RF screen in addition to a good amount of damping material. They work well on the casework and on transformer braces, and are flexible enough to use on parts of the transport - the top of the transport is particularly flimsy and once damped you won't believe the resulting smoothness, detail and tight bass.

The feet are easily unscrewed, and I replaced them with three solid oak cones that I glued on with Araldite. They give a much better sound than the terrible imitation metal ones supplied.

Now to mains cables. I use an LAT Interational AC-2 with my 904 and I think it's great value ($100 for 4ft). The 904 has a captive cable so you'll have to either cut it outside the case and add a male IEC, or drill a hole and solder it directly inside. The improvement in sound quality is more noticeable than with the equivalent or double the price interconnects.

Use an anti-static spray on the stable platter, the transport and casework. Sounds excessive but you REALLY should try it (and on the print-side of your CDs).

All the above should cost up to $300 and what you have sounds MUCH better than anything you could by new for that money and more. You could even spend a bit having Trichord add a Clock 3 with power supply for you and still have change from $750. The Marantz 6000KI Signature would NEVER be able to match a 904 modified in this way.

It takes some guts to make some of the modifications, but I'm a biology graduate NOT a tech-head and I didn't have much trouble. The value and rating for this CD player is based on what you can find it for these days and the potential it has after some TLC, so I have to give it 5 stars all the way. Hey, I've even seen some PD-S505 Precisions going for $75 more than the 904, and I'd really love to get my tweaking hands on one of those!!!