Home > Consumer Reviews > Pioneer PD-F1009 301-Disc CD-File Changer

I have seen/used the Sony 300 CD Changer and I have used the Pioneer 300 CD Changer and the Sony does not come close.

The Pioneer changes discs fast , user-friendly remote/jog dial and good sound quality when played through the Digital output.

I would definitely recommend the Pioneer PDF1009 for anyone considering a 300 CD Player.

I've owned this changer for about 6 months. My main fear of buying a large jukebox such as this was whether it would work: Reviews on Amazon and elsewhere of Sony and JVC carousel changes seemed to indicate that failure rates were high.

I was very excited about the CDText feature: With so many CDs in the changer, an on-screen display of the CD titles without manually entering them seemed like a good feature. Unfortunately, the changer only seems to support the 'title' field. I wrote some scripts for Linux to munge the title field to include the artist, but since most of my music is in iTunes (and not on a Linux machine) I eventually quit bothering with CDText altogether (it would be nice if iTunes supported CDText) and just burning the CDs from iTunes.

My solution is that I have a print out listing of the CD slot locations. Not elegant, but it works well.

Another concern I had when buying this changer was whether it would work with CD-Rs. After reading reviews of other brands that claimed the changers were scratching CDs, I knew I was not going to put my original CDs into the changer.

I can happily report this changer works fine with CD-Rs. I've never had a store-bought CD in this changer.

I have an optical cable from the changer to my receiver; the sound is wonderful. Other reviews have mentioned hollow sound from this changer when using the analog connection, and I'm inclined to agree. Use an optical cable if possible. Regardless, it sounds as good as my other two 5 disc changers if not better (they are not high end gear, though).

Other reviews have complained the changer is slow: For me, the only place where I feel it is "slow" is when detecting that no disc is loaded into a slot. Actually changing out one disc for another seems rather fast, though of course there is a delay (but it's probably not desirable for the changer to be throwing discs around quickly afterall). Speed is not really a problem for me with this changer.

Construction is solid and the remote is well laid out and compact. This is my only Pioneer component, but I am very happy with it.

Previously loyal customer of Sony, unfortunately, Sony service is the worst in the industry. The Pioneer PD-F1009 has worked perfectly, easy to set-up and no glitches with respect to play.

I would highly recommend that no one purchase the multi-disc Sony products, their laser reader is flawed and they refuse to be honest and return the product. It took 20 plus phone calls to get the Sony company to take back their defective product.

Recently, my 20 yr old Pioneer PD-M6 bit the dust, so I went shopping for another Pioneer CD player and found this 300 disc player.

PROS: This holds all of my CD collection and then some.
Multi-programming capability, although I haven't had the opportunity to use them because I don't have the time to wait for the CD player to confirm my choices.

CONS: My old 6CD magazine player never made me wait more than 4-5 seconds to play its next track when in RANDOM mode. However, this 300 disc player has made me wait more than 30 seconds between tracks.
Also, when I connected the CD player - cassette recorder synchro cables between the two units, it disabled the CD player's remote. I haven't tried to record anything yet, but am discouraged by the extremely small remote for the receiver that requires a magnifying glass to read and is a "phat phinger" accident waiting to happen.
This makes it very difficult to interact with the Pioneer system without a lot of effort.

Ease of Use=2 Features=3 (historical)Quality=4

I have installed 2 of these in a double ice surface arena, the home of a very busy skating school. I can say that this product under the kind of stress it receives daily is nothing short of stellar in performance and all round reliability. After 5+ years of service, these machines are showing their age a bit more each day, so they are being replaced with 2 more identical. One of the most important features in my application was loading time. We need it FAST. The Pioneer PD-F1009 is very quick from load to play, considering all the decisions it has to make from the time it is told to do something! At the opposite end of the speed spectrum is the Sony 300 disc player.
The Pioneer PD-F1009 is very, very good value for it's price and I would be surprised if one wouldn't give 15+ years of problem free service in a home application.