Method for manufacturing pitch-densified carbon-carbon composite brake discs from carbon fiber preforms, by the following sequential steps: (a) providing a carbon-carbon composite brake disc preform; (b) heat treating the preform; (c) subjecting the heat-treated preform to Chemical Vapor Deposition/Chemical Vapor Infiltration processing; (d) infiltrating the preform with an isotropic low to medium char-yield pitch by Vacuum Pitch Infiltration processing or Resin Transfer Molding processing; (e) carbonizing the pitch-infiltrated preform; (f) machining the surfaces of the resulting carbonized preform; and (g) repeating steps (d) through (f) until the density of the carbon-carbon composite preform is at least 1.70 g/cc. The use of VPI equipment with isotropic, low to medium char-yield pitches for all densification steps following an initial CVD densification reduces capital and pitch materials cost. However, one or more RTM processing steps employing low to medium char-yield pitches may also be used to obtain improved economics.