Goldmund V.S. Pioneer !!?? - Page 11

£6000 is the price in the first post of the Eden Audio thread, and on other forums as far back as early December. I think that the player in the first post is the Eidos 18D, but others say that the Eidos 20 series shares the same components. The Eidos 18D's retail price seems to be around $9-10k, with the 20 costing a bit more.

The Goldmund Eidos 18CD is half the price, but it doesn't have the gold faceplate of the 18D.

Ok I have seen this mentioned before on European forums as the SRDVD which would make sense as it has all the same multiformat functionality.

Further evidence that there is far too much heresay and misinformation going on here...

Anyway the Pioneer DV-575A I have has been very favourably reviewed in the UK press as being not far off the Naim CD5i in sound quality terms so it would be a good platform to build a higher end multiformat player and as nobody outside of the larger CE combines makes this technology I still fail to see why this is being blown up into such a big deal.

Anyone knows the US model of Pioneer DV-575A? TIA

The U.S. model was the DV-578A-S. However, the Goldmund appears to be based on the DV-585A, which was the model after the 575. The U.S. version of the DV-585A was the DV-588A-S, but it lacked high-res audio features.

I've owned the Pioneer DV-578A-S; it's a nice budget introduction to high-res, along with the even-better prior model DV-563A. I just sold my DV-563A to a fellow Head-Fier who plans to mod the heck out of it.

The DV-575A is actually much more impressive on redbook than SACD or DVD-A but still no match for a decent dedicated CD.
Picture quality is great though, it was quite a ground breaking package when it came out a few years back.

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Which is also just another opinion since they failed to provide any details which would allow a calculation of statistical power, or even a rough estimate of power. Failure to reject a hypothesis without discussing the power of your experiment is unacceptable from a scientific perspective. I didn't want anyone to be left with the false impression that this was somehow a scientific test.

Interesting. I have had it set up alongside two vintage Marantz machines, a CD-63 and CD75IISE and now a two box Arcam set which was top of the range in the mid 1990s. Also compared it just as a transport feeding the Arcam Blackbox 500 DAC which allows 6 digital inputs.

It's impressive for sure but lacks the drama of the older multibit Marantz machines and amazing dimensionality of the Arcam 250 transport. Overall I'd characterise the Pioneer as smooth and very versatile with everything you can throw at it but just lacking the musicality of a good dedicated CD player. It just doesn't involve you as much.

More subjective impressions to be sure but I don't think there is any doubt that it's a total bargain at the price if you can still find one.

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I agree, that the Pioneer is a true surprise player (I have only heard it in other systems however). I have also come to the conclusion that most disc players are very close sonically and some are just remarkable for their price. So for me, I look for the sweet-spot player in a line-up, and also look for features that are useful such as digital inputs and dual differential Dacs, audition it in my system for at least a few months and then decide if it is worth upgrading, especially the analog output stage. But, and this is a big but, that is how I am proceeding, if someone feels that would just buy a megabuck player from the get-go, more power to them, if that is what floats-their-boat.

That all manufacturers source transports from one of three major companies doesn't seem relevant to me, as Goldmund is (apparently) reusing the entire circuitry as well. Most of the mention on Goldmund's site about this is explaining to (I assume) irate customers why their $12,000 ($6000?) player sports a Pioneer logo on the screen when you start it without a DVD in.

It's also true that this kind of hotrodding has been going on for a long time (the Meridian MCD was a souped-up Philips CD-101, the McCormack UDP-1 begins life as a Pioneer DV-45, etc.) but these other shops have been a good deal more forthcoming than Goldmund about the source of their players, and the mods they perform have been much more extensive.

Do we have any way of confirming just what Goldmund player we're talking about here? My understanding is this was the Eidos-18D. Considering the (almost legendary) quality of Goldmund's casework (and the cost of dies, tooling charges, etc.) $6000 is at least conceivable for such a unit, although still not a good value. And, although they probably wouldn't admit it, I expect that for many of Goldmund's customers, the casework is the most important feature.

Completely agree with your assessment of the similarities of many digital sources. Your post also alludes to the fact that, despite what we often say, there are other factors besides sound that inform a purchasing decision. You mention features...there's also reliability, brand, and price (certainly the most important for me: it doesn't matter if the $1000 player sounds better than the $200 player...if I don't have the $1000 I'm not going to get it).

In the grand scheme of the industry, Goldmund is a very unique company. They don't use a traditional dealer network, but sell through (in the U.S. anyway) dedicated Goldmund stores in New York and Chicago. Rather than booking a room at CES they flew select journalists, via private Gulfstream jet, to the Goldmund demo house near L.A., and they don't send gear out for reviews in the audio press (contrary to what the conspiracy theorists might say, this is because their products sell well enough without PR. True snake-oilers send gear out for review all the time, often unsolicited).

I don't think Goldmund's customers are audiophiles, necessarily...at least not as we tend to think of them here on Head-Fi. Rather, they are well-heeled types who "just want the best" and don't always have the time to go out and shop for it (an entry-level Goldmund home theater install is $300,000). These need to have a fit & finish in keeping with a eight-figure home and sound good, but don't necessarily need to win an A-B comparison with something from EMM labs or whoever.

Goldmund, the humble

Did you guys see this?

Audio Asylum Thread Printer

GOLDMUND - Newsletter

This is hilarious!!! Goldmund, please make it to the next Tokyo Audio Show (TIAS), I want to meet with you!

arnaud.

UNBELIEVABLE.

after getting caught, Goldmund now trying fruitlessly to justify their PR disaster.

"We, at Goldmund, absolutely never listen to our components before releasing them to the market. But we have a pretty good idea on how they will sound, because we do measure them… "

it's easy to make a fool & his money part ways...

From what I saw on the Goldmund website, the whole company looks like an elaborate hoax. I don't really think it is, but it could be. At best the company is an extremely cynical ploy to tap into large discretionary spending pools.