Pioneer Elite BDP-09FD Blu-ray Player First Look

Pioneer displayed their new Elite BDP-09FD flagship Blu-ray player at CEDIA 2009 claiming it has become the world’s first Blu-ray Disc Player to achieve THX certification.  But, the lack of DVD-A and SACD support is a bit unsettling considering that Pioneer is positioning this player as their reference to appeal to audiophiles and videophiles alike. 

Their big push this year is THX certification of their electronics and speakers.  Here is a pull quote about this from their press release.

“Pioneer recognizes THX as the industry benchmark for rigorous, unbiased testing and endorsement of high performance home theater products,” said Russ Johnston, executive vice president of home entertainment business solutions group at Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc.  “As true A/V specialists, our engineers have worked relentlessly to craft a full line of products that rival the movie theater experience, which not only meet Pioneer’s strict principles for faithful reproduction of content, but now feature THX certification.”

That’s great, now give us DVD-A and SACD support like the $500 Oppo BDP-83 blu-ray player which also has a THX certified version offered by Lexicon announced at CEDIA.

Some noteworthy features of the BDP-09FD include:

• Dual HDMI 1.3a Outputs with 48-bit Deep Color Support (because more bits are better, despite there is no 36 bit firmware support yet)
  
• Pioneer developed 48-bit video processor
• Marvell QDEO Video Processing
• 8 Wolfson Audio DAC’s running in dual mode
• Audiophile build quality
• BD-live support with 4 GB of internal RAM

The BDP-09FD is quite a sturdy built player weighing in at 30lbs.  It has the look and feel of a high end product you’d expect from Pioneer Elite.  The MSRP is $2,200.

For more information, visit Pioneer Electronics

Unless otherwise indicated, this is a preview article for the featured product. A formal review may or may not follow in the future.