Warning for future buyers. You'll find here reviews of not only the pd-f1007 model, but also the pd-f1009 and pd-f1039. This led to a personal confusion when I bought my unit, the pd-f1009. Reviews here led me to believe that this unit and the others had Title Input capabilities. More, at http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/Pioneer/Images/HomeProduct/pdf-1009_remote.jpg you can see on the remote the buttons for that function. I even returned my remote because of this (seeing it was different from the one on their page). I still couldn't input titles. ONLY with the pd-f1039 you can. That's what Pioneer told me. If you have the 1009 and by miracle you do Input, write to me. I know the CD-Text thing, I don't care about that.

This is an example of the importance of reviewing the right product at the right place.

It's still a good product, but for the mistake on their Web page costing a trip back to the store, the overall rating goes down.

I just bought this unit a few days ago. Am very pleased as to the quietness of the unit when changing discs. Not real happy with the sound. It is good, but only "good".
301 CD capacity is great. But if you really like listening to music in depth, try a better machine.

Yes, I know this is not the CD player if you are looking for the ultimate CD sound experience, but you have to admit
its real nice to have 301 CDs at your fingertips, its
great to throw away those awful jewel cases, and its
easy to hit one of ten music catagory buttons when entertaining
company. I have had the pdf-1007 for a week and can offer the
following: It is too difficult to enter the CD titles because the
player does not allow you to attach a standard keyboard (must use
cheap wheel or clumsy remote). However, once entered, it works
fine, quickly and quietly finding my disks and playing, (even
very scratched) discs very well. While instructions indicate
it will maintain its database if unplugged for a month, I would
feel better if it had a battery backup. Lastly, as alluded to
earlier, the remote is pathetic--small, with poor organization and
little thought as to usability. In the end, I still appreciate
its convienance (sp), and because of its low cost ($300 at best buy)
you can also buy a very expensive single player unit and use the
Pioneer to store your discs!

I just bought this unit 3 weeks ago and I love it!. It has far better soundquality than any other disk player I've had. I have 1400 cds, mostly greatest
hits disks and oldies compilations. Now I can really make some killer tapes
with the disks that are already loaded in. Plus I have a Pioneer tape deck, so I can use the CD synch.

I think the remote is quite acceptable, and it's certainly easy to program.
The remote is a heck of a lot better than the one that came with my last Pioneer cd player from 1992.
Martin Nathan

This unit has an MSRP of $225 but is offered for sale virtually anywhere at $300. The $700 MSRP shown on this site is for the similar Pioneer Elite Series PD-F919 whose additional features (aside from rosewood side panels) include 20-bit (vs this unit's 1-bit)conversion and easier text entry. I assume there are any number of higher performance 24-bit single disc "audiophile" players, and since no current player offers anything like the no brains automatic text entry provided by CDDB to anyone with an internet connection and CD ROM, and since the displays on both units are limited to 12 characters/spaces - who cares.
When my old but relatively high performance $750 Onkyo Integra DX7500 finally gave up the ghost I decided to try the Pioneer. As a consumer electronics professional with 28 years in the industry, I'd long since seriously considered tweaky near-lunatic fringe products, but a 300 +1 CD changer at under a buck per CD just had to be awful. Well, surprise, surprise. It sounded just fine - certainly as good as an 8-year old higher end player.

If you think that $100 patch cords are clearly inferior to $1,000 patch cords - look elsewhere. But if you haven't lost sight of the fact that hi-fi equipment is primarily intended for the enjoyment of music - go for it. As all of the previous reviewers have noted, you will find yourself listening to MORE music with MORE variety, MORE of the time.

For example, punching a few buttons I went from Dylan doing Just Like A Woman, to Richie Haven's version of the same song on Mixed Bag, to Percy Sledge's When A Man Loves A Woman, to Otis Redding's Try A Little Tenderness, to Billie Holiday's I'll Be Seeing You. I was just in that kind of mood but I wouldn't have dreamed of doing that without a changer.

Another important feature: Unless you also have a single disk player in your system, don't consider any giga-changer that isn't equipped with a "+1" slot. Pioneer's is especially easy to use and access time is quite short.

The biggest negative has also aready been covered. It doesn't matter how good your eyesight is, the remote is unreadable. Count on memorizing the location of the most important buttons. On the other hand, the main units controls - especially the jog dial, make access a pleasure.

Oops! Correction to my review:I posted this: "This unit has an MSRP of $225 but is offered for sale virtually anywhere at $300."
What I meant tp post was this: "This unit has an MSRP of $425 but is offered for sale virtually anywhere at $300."

I knew firsthand, that the Pioneer was definately not Audiophile grade material, but for convenience, it just cannot be beat. I was about to purchase a Sony, when I came across this gem. The units are not sold in Dubai so I had to request a friend to ship it down from the States. Luckily my wife works for DHL so I saved on the freight. I plan to control the player via an old Pentium computer running Graywolf's CD Jukebox software(www.graywolfsoftware.com). The interface is through an IR-x card (www.appdig.com or www.smarthome.com), which emulates the infra-red signals. The sofware allows you to make custom playlists as well as giving you a on screen display of the discography. (my computer is hooked up the the living room television and is controlled by an infrared keyboard).For one, my wife is really happy that I've got rid of my half complete CD rack and done away with the jewel boxes.

Instead of buying a $500 piece of furniture in which to store my CDs, I decided to try this. I bought one, filled it up, recycled 300 jewel cases, and began re-discovering my music collection. JOY! It didn't take me long to decide that I couldn't leave any of my CDs out of the jukebox, so a week later I bought a second changer. Now ALL the jewel cases are gone, I've got a 600 CD-changer, and I couldn't be happier.
My system is far from the state of the art, so I can't detect any lack of sound quality. If you've got a bunch of CDs you've been ignoring for some years, I highly recommend going this route. Here's why:

* I can listen to ANY CD in my collection instantly.
* When I punch up "random" it's like someone started a local radio station that plays only my favorites, commercial-free.
* Two players hooked together work as one changer from the same remote.
* 300-disk capacity is tremendous--the other changers I've seen hold 200 or fewer.
* The remote control has such good range that it works when I point it out of my upstairs bedroom.
* Pioneer has improved the usability of this machine from their earlier equipment. It's like they finally figured out that I don't need equipment that looks and operates like a 747's instrument panel.

The only drawbacks:
* With two connected players, random and programmed play only work on one player at a time, so you can't program them to play a track from disk 100 followed a track from disk 500. It's a real shame.
* Entering disk titles is absolutely excruciating. That's OK, though. I don't mind programming it as I watch Must See TV.

Happy listening to everybody!

Bought the Pioneer PDF-1007 301 changer about a week ago at Best Buy for $299.00. Like the idea of having all my discs organized and right at hand and easy to get to. Hearing tracks I haven't heard in years. I love this unit. I have had no problems at all with this unit. Entering the titles does get to be a little bit of a chore. Found that using the dial was easier. After a while I got pretty good at entering. Wish this unit had subdivisions of the music type groups. The sound is great. Buy this unit you will love it.

UPDATE April 29.1999: To understand this entry you must read my original review farther down the page.
On April 12, 1999, after swapping out the PD-F1007 with the unbalanced channels, I returned both the master and slave PD-F1007s to the local Best Buy in Orlando. They forwarded the units to their Hollywood, Florida service center who forwarded the units to the Pioneer service center which is evidently somewhere in California (these units are getting to travel more then I do). I informed my contact in the Pioneer service department (Rocky Clarke) through e-mail and called Pioneer's complaint department to let them know of my action. They traced the units down, and let me know that the problem is being solved by the replacement of one of the ICs. It seems that they have an updated IC which should take care of the problem of two units working together.

I don't know if recent production models will suffer the same problem. However, if you have an older unit and think that you might purchase a second, or if you are having difficulty with two units working together, it's good to know that there is a solution to the problem. At least that's what I've been told.

When I get the units back, I'll let you know how things turned out.

I'm sticking with my 4 star review, even though this has all been a big pain in the butt, because they are at least trying.