Pioneer's Speaker Genius Hits Low Price Point - Page 7

I'm glad I stumbled into this thread. I read Pioneer and never thought to read the first post. Why I did I don't know but now I find myself wanting to listen to some cheap Pioneer speakers.

I'm in the market for some good speakers for my HK and was somewhat set on some Hsu HB-1's. My budget is around $677 and I had planned on the HB-1's as well as another Hsu sub to handle the low end.

I've considered B&W's 685 speaker as well as several PSB models. But now I find myself wanting to demo these Pioneers. Could I really be satisfied with a $200 pair of speakers? I find this hard to believe but my wallet disagrees.

I talked with Pioneer Canada and was told these speakers will be available in 2011.

Go back to post #17 #23 #37

Compare bookshelf to bookshelf - compare tower to tower.

i agree with you, and happened to be in the middle of putting together a new TV setup and only needed to chose speakers, which was turning out to be the deepest quagmire of all.

I live at least 30 miles from any place to compare them myself and never had a very worthwhile or relevant experience using the listening rooms at large outlets anyway.

To find such nearly universal positive responses along with the participation of the two people involved in this Pioneer project and be able to read their enthusiasm for their achievement with these speakers is, I think, impossible to resist in light of the mixed information available for all other speaker setups in any price range below about a thousand dollars.

So thank you all. I'm very confident that these speakers will more than meet my needs and very likely provide sound that's more pleasing to me than any other choice at the pricepoint would or could have done.

You sound like me . I was set on either a pair of PSB's or Ascend Acoustics and then I noticed this thread about the pioneer speakers. I still find it hard to believe that I will be getting a quality set of speakers for $199 (bookshelf or the towers) but it seems that way. In the limited listening I have done at BB, the towers are impressive. I am not crazy with the look and actually think the bookshelf's (I would order the larger bookshelf's from Pioneer if I decided to get them) look better. Of course, the tower's are a steal for the price especially compared to the $199 pair of bookshelf's so I haven't ruled them out.

It would also save me quite a bit of money if I just went with the Pioneer's but I also want to make sure it is the right decision. I am looking at a closeout pair of PSB B25's and the Ascend Acoustics CBM-170se speakers.

Through all of this, I am considering purchasing an old friend again if you will. I had a pair of PSB Alpha B1's about three years ago and loved them. Sure there are speakers now that beat them for the price but they were amazing speakers and would do fine in a 3.1 setup in our small living room. I recently auditioned them again and was shocked at how impressive they still were to me.

I honestly don't want to break the bank because I have little kids and realize that scratches and nicks will happen no matter how much you protect them. So I am definitely still considering the pioneer's along with a few other low cost brands. I do like the metal grills of the Pioneer/PSB Alpha speakers because it would protect them from little roaming fingers .

For me the look of the towers are a turn off as stated above. If I take the plunge, I will probably blind buy the Pioneer BS41's from pioneer's site because they are the only ones selling them.

Decisions, decisions, lol.

People need to weigh out their options and be sure of their decision.

Yeah I dont know if the BS41s will be better than the PSB B25 or the Ascend CBM-170s. In fact I highly doubt they are.

The Pioneers are good budget speakers but probably not in the class of the two mentioned above.

Looking to buy the BS41, BS21 and centre channel but due to space concerns the speakers will have to be wall mounted above the television

I either plan on getting wall mounts for the fronts and centre or a wide shelve over the television to hold the speakers.

Are there any concerns with having the speakers sit on something like this.....

http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/40103751

You can tell that by the price alone?

I hear you. I too have a little girl running around and I can safely say that having speakers with metal grills do work well w/ children. My HT room has Infinity Beta series speakers which all use metal grills. My child has smacked them multiple times and not a scratch on em. Peace of mind totally.

For me its the idea that I want the best for my money. But who doesn't like to save a bit-o cash?

Another thing is I decided recently that I wanted to build a stereo system and for a first time I wanted to buy quality kit. When I think of high end brand names for speakers Pioneer does not come to mind. I understand they have some very high end kit but those items have been and will most likely always be out of my reach. Their standard 'every man's' speakers have never been anything special in my experience.

I much prefer to say; "Yeah I have a couple B&W's hooked up to my HK" then "Yeah I got me some Pioneers attached to my HK."

That is completely the wrong way to think though; though its hard not to when you visit sites like this where members have thousands of dollars invested in their speakers alone.

I'm going to listen to them soon and if they impress me enough I'll think real hard about bringing them home. I'd have to go for the towers though. But I'd have to pick up some speaker stands to get them to my ears properly.

I had my mind set on getting a Virtual 5.1 surround sound system (Sony HTCT350) for $400 but after stumbling across this thread and the excitement around these speakers I cant take my mind off these. I sort of want to stay within my budget but if I went another $100 over it would be OK. Would purchasing a receiver (cheaper the better) and then the floor standing Pioneer speakers plus the Pioneer center blow away a virtual sound bar setup such as the Sony (or anyone in the $400 price point)? Only negatives I see is I probably won't get HDMI options on a budget receiver. Any recommendations regarding a receiver? Thanks!

This will put you a little over $500 - go to www.ac4l.com and look
at the Onkyo HT-RC160 refurbish receiver with HDMI. Then get the
Pioneer towers and Pioneer center speaker. Then save up and add
to your system later. Much better than Virtual surround.

It's pretty exciting when companies release products that aim to break the mould. Right now in the HTIB segment, you pretty much have plastic sat speakers that are designed to mostly stay out of the way visuallly, and just make surround noise. For $89/pair, you can have bookshelf speakers with a solid cabinet with actual thought toward the sound quality and emphasis on design elements that actually make a difference. I also like the metal grills, this is a real nod toward a practical everyday speaker when there are little ones running around. My friends always ask me, what kind of HT system shoul I buy for $500-1000? Now there seems to be a real choice that is easily obtainable instead of the usual answer "try to find some PSB, Energy, or Infnity system at clearance prices". Of course, the jury is still out but I have a lot of fath that these Pioneers will be very listenable. Of course, I really don't expect them to outpace much more expensive speakers in any one aspect but it will be interesting how far they can get overall.

I would like to see this trend continue, now that Pioneer has addressed the budget range, maybe move upwards for a slightly upscale but still high value. We know that you can design towers for $199 but what if one had slghtly more to spend, say $400. They could improve the cosmetics somewhat and widen their appeal. Hopefully this range will be a success and Pioneer will be encouraged to expand the range.

stumbled to this thread huh??

After work today I am heading out to demo these towers and bookshelf speakers. (I hope they are setup with a decent source). I'm no audiophile by any sense of the word and the best speakers I have owned are the ones in my home right now (Infinity Beta series and Polk Audio Monitor 40's) so those will be what I'm comparing the Pioneers to.

I'll let you know what i think later tonight.

gl but it's not easy to compare in stores like best buy , unless it's in the magnolia room

i have polk monitor 60's and wanted to check these guys out. I went to a BB and to much background noise to really get an idea.

Just left a bestbuy and saw these. There's no way anyone can audition these inside the place. Its just horrbly set up and store is too loud.

Save urself the extra trip and just order them if you want to audition them. Return it if its not right. There no chance anybody will be sold just by hearing them in the store. My two cents.

Find a store with a manolia room and ask to have the speakers moved into the room for you. If they give you hassle get a manager to ok it. You can't be expected to buy if you can't listen.

I work for best buy and it's really not a problem to do that for a customer.

I agree about the bad setup at BB.

Went there a while back to listen to these and it was difficult to listen to speakers set up down an aisle.

Asking the sales people to move them into the magnolia area seems like a long shot but might be worth the try.

Despite the bad set up, they sounded decent. Will probably sound much better at home. I think the best idea might be to just buy them and return them if you are not satisfied.

don't think i will be changing my polk audio 60's for these .. but if i had waited a little longer for the speakers ( i got them two months ago ) i would really of consider these and might of gotten these instead. Heck i might of waited longer if I had known about these before.

Yeah I was thinking about just buying them to demo at my house. I might just do that depending on what happens at BB later today.

anyone that has already heard these can compare them to polk rti a3's?
just curious how they compare for music...

Hi all!
I've been reading this forum and figured I should share my thoughts. I recently purchased the JBL ES25C center cannel when I saw these Pioneers. I liked the idea of the inexpensive towers but thought at their price, I wouldn't be happy with them.

My current system includes the Athena Micra 6 powered by the Onkyo TX-SR501. This set up was excellent for my smaller room, but I bought a house with a larger living room a couple years ago. Every time the room size increased with the Athenas I felt I was losing more and more sound, so I had been wanting new speakers for a while.

Well, so I got my JBL after being impressed with a similar one I bought for my father-in-law. I hooked up the JBL and liked it very much, but didn't absolutely love it 100% but I still can't pinpoint why. I started wandering how other speakers would sound so I bought a Polk CS10 and then I remembered this Pioneer SP-C21. So I went to Best Buy and bought both.

My testing method was to turn the center cannel up to its maximum (+12) while lowering all the other speakers to their minimum (-12). Crossover was set to 80Hz as it seemed to be the fairest way to test all of them, that way the bassiest speaker wouldn't dominate. This way I could just really focus on what the centers sound like almost on they're own. I played various kinds of music using Dolby Pro-Logic II Movie mode (so the most sound would be placed in the center channel).

Okay...
I took the better part of a day and involved my wife for an hour or so to get her opinion. We really did hear the same things which was nice. All three speakers sounded larger and fuller than the small Athena due to them being larger speakers in a larger room. Our least favorite was the Polk CS10. To us it seemed like the kind of speaker that is made to impress. It looks nice, and puts up a large wall of sound with plenty of tweeter energy. It is a very efficient speaker, however the detail easily gets lost in it's swooshy presentation.

The JBL was our favorite, but what was so amazing is that the Pioneer was very similar in the areas I found important. Male and female vocals sounded very realistic, a very minor difference that may just be attributed to the Pioneer's slightly lower efficiency. The dynamics were outstanding on both with the Pioneer maybe having an ever so slightly less dynamic sound, but at the same time, it may have been just a little more open sounding. The Pioneer seemed to have a little more pronounced tweeter, but I think that will end up working better with my Moderno in-ceiling speakers (1" soft dome).

What I really liked about the JBL was the ability to put vocals in the room in a way that makes them sound real. You can't tell if it's a woofer making sound or the tweeter... it just sounds real. Then I would switch to the Pioneer and think, "Wow! This is so similar! How did they do this for so much less money?" I would say that build quality on the JBL is a little better than the Pioneer, but the Pioneer was better than the Polk and closer in quality to the JBL. My wife and I both felt that the sound quality of the Pioneer is like 90% or so of the JBL and at a much lower price. And I can imagine people preferring the Pioneer's crisp very slightly more typical tweeter sound.

For me it's been a hard decision, but as much as I wanted the JBL's I am going to return it in favor of the Pioneers. Money matters more every day. I just returned the Polk center channel and picked up the Pioneer towers. I haven't hooked them up yet, but it was fun and impressive to take them out of the box. I get even happier when I look at the purchase receipt and see the price.

I would like to personally thank Andrew Jones for both his efforts in the speaker's creation and for addressing the members of this forum. I think that word of moth is going to be key in selling these speakers, as they are not likely to be demo'ed in any meaningful way to what could be their target customer (not just someone cheap, but a low, low... no budget audiophile ).

And a quick question for Andrew, is there any area where costs were cut that the DIY'er can improve upon? I'm just wondering if something simple like adding more polyfill is something you had to cut costs on that would improve the sound. Thank you.

With the curved cabinets and the bracing - they only put a modest
amount of poly batten to line the walls. It would take patience and
listening tests to determine if more polyfill would sound better.

I am sure you know, that you should voice match the front channels.

Yeah. I have the Pioneer center and the towers now. I'll probably be hooking them all up later in the week and see how they compare to the Athena satellites. I'll still be using the Athena's for surrounds and subwoofer until I get arround to putting up the in-ceilings.

What should I listen for if I put in extra polyfill? The JBL had more and it seemed a little more quiet and controlled overall. Would it improve that or would it change the port tuning and ruin something else? Thanks.

I'll also add that when I tested the impedence with a multimeter the Pioneer was right at 6.?? Ohms and the JBL and Polk were 4.something Ohms (can't remember exact reading). So concerns about the low impedence are probably not an issue. Pioneer gives an honest rating while the other guys just want you to think everything will work okay but are, in actuallity, of an even lower impedence.

Andrew Jones is a good designer - he has done a good job controlling
the back waves with the cabinet and brace. He has voiced this system
a certain way. I would listen to this system for a while and not mess
with it for now. The JBL woofers and Pioneer woofers are different.

For what it's worth the ES25 is a pretty poor center channel. I am not surprised you chose the pioneers. For a budget center it's got a nice woofer and box size going, which are two major advantages vs. most inexpensive center channels.

JBL makes a true 3-way center channel under model EC35/P35 which is a very good center and can be found used pretty cheap at times. Not of much use to you now but it is vastly better than the es25 and many other 2-way centers I have heard.

I went to BB last night. What a disappointment. BB not the speakers.

So I walked around, found all the speakers and no Pioneer towers. Now I called before driving there and they stated they had some in stock. After walking around a bit I asked someone and they told me they were in the back. wtf.... IMO I think they don't have them on the shelf because they would be sitting next to their Polks and Klipsch speakers which cost quite a bit more. Crazy though that they are selling an item but not putting it on the shelf.

The magnolia room was a disappointment as well., one pair of B&W, one pair of Martin Logan, several pairs of Definitive Technology , and i butt load of Klipsch.

I wanted to demo the B&W 685. But I ended up leaving without demoing anything at all.

So I decided that i will buy the Pioneer towers next week and demo them in the comfort of my own home.