[raysracing]

Too much talk regarding these speakers. So I bought them at Fry's Electronics for $89 open box and matching Amazon ad.

Some might find this interesting. I set the SB22's next to a pair of studio monitors, the $15K ATC SCM20's. The ATC's are amazing speakers with their built-in class a biased amplifiers and house made drivers. They measured better than any speaker I've had in my room. In come the $89 Pioneers.

Here's the room response no sub attached. The Pioneers are on their own 


That's about a 12db variation at ~10KHz. As expected, bass drops off at 65Hz. For the most part, these would play well and did in my room all by themselves. Wife gave it a thumbs up.

Here's a pic with the subs attached (Atoms)


Scratching my head as to why I have a suckout at 7KHz after the subs are employed. But you see the response is all over the place. Just like it is in all your rooms. 

Now here's the cheating part. I ran a calibration from Anti Mode and got this.


What you see here is the correction placed between 0 to 500Hz. There's a suckout at 40Hz and anti mode is smart enough to leave that alone.

I know this is cheap and cheerful Thread but I though it might be of interest to someone.
So the Pioneers are being fed amplification from a BMC S1. Not fair but I got to say, $90 bucks is the best money I ever spent on speakers.

So what's wrong with these? The buzzing we hear at a certain frequency I haven't yet identified. Sounds like it coming from the tweeter and more so on the left side. Placement was important but I did manage to get a decent amount of depth and a good central image. The tweeters are a little rough sounding and don't really reach for the stars. The overall image is quite good. Tonality is great. Joan Osborne guttural vocals came through and we got decent separation of instruments although lacking in air. Hey, I could be talking about speakers costing 50 times more! The cables attached to these speakers cost more than 20 times the speakers! Am I crazy or what?

Here's what it looks like now. The ATC's just sold. The subs are going too. Now I'm down to just the Pioneers

I agree there is something special on vocals. Especially when it is with very little or no instruments.  There is a tonality, height, depth to them that makes you wonder if your in the recording studio with the artist. Almost life like or 3d.  As well as my Omega's make a big realistic soundstage they aren't as freaky on the singer yet.

[OzarkTom]

KEF LS50 at $1,500 certainly break the bank of the Cheap and Cheerful HiFi circle.

But he use to have 15K ATC's.

[jk@home]

I agree there is something special on vocals. Especially when it is with very little or no instruments.  There is a tonality, height, depth to them that makes you wonder if your in the recording studio with the artist. Almost life like or 3d.  As well as my Omega's make a big realistic soundstage they aren't as freaky on the singer yet.

I picked up a pair of BS22s just for giggles and kicks, to compare to my Magnepan MMGs.  Maggies are know for their midrange. Other than the lack of the extra "spaciousness" from the MMGs backwave, I thought the Pioneers sounded very similar in the midrange.

And the whole exercise was to determine whether I wanted to go back to monopole speakers in my small listening room, later to upgrade to something like the KEF LS50s. Now thinking it could happen.

I plan on using a Behringer DEQ2496 to tame the new Vifa tweeters in my Pioneers. IMHO, for what the Behr does, it's pretty cheap and cheerful.

[MichaelHiFi]

They are still in our room, the ATC's. After sharing an evening with the Pioneers and reinstalled the ATC's.

The Pioneers are amazing at what they do for their price, but the ATC's made your eyes water how good they sounded.

Bye ATC's. 

[amprocks]

Amazon have Pioneer SP-BS22-LR on sale for $99.98 as of 02/09/2014!

Price Match @BB paid for tweeter upgrades. Not bad at all.

[jarcher]

If your feeling particularly tight fisted, the SP-BS21 former model is available for $59.99 including shipping, but not tax, from Groupon.

Be aware that if you sign up to Groupon just for this offer and try to send to an address different from your billing one, you might have problems & have to call in your order.  At least that happened to me as I was buying to send to a friend as a gift. 

Shipping can take up to 12 days - but hey - it's $60!  Next cheapest seems to be New Egg @ $80.

[OzarkTom]

Shipping can take up to 12 days - but hey - it's $60!  Next cheapest seems to be New Egg @ $80.

I bought my daughter a sock Monkey hat and it is taking two weeks to get here.

[ck42]

So...no extra cap in series with tweeter?
Based on Dmurphy's analysis, I'm a little confused here....

I am attaching the diagram for illustration from SP-BS21-LR thread on parts-express forum
I have attached modified diagram with known SP-BS-22-LR nominals. Inductors nominals are unknown, so I left figures from BS21 unmodified.


Based on this diagram, proposed addition of the series 4uf cap in tweeter + circuit will make it a 3rd order crossover. the issue is the phases are mismatching now. Also 3rd order will make potential dip even more prominent as it attenuates even more aggressively. 2nd order x-over has 180 phase shift (reversed polarity) and 3rd order has 270 (-90). In order for this mod to work without any side effects an extra series inductor L3 (~0.42mH, based on BS21 nominals) should be added to woofer + circuit to convert it to 3rd order as well. Anyway, later results would suggest no modification to crossover is needed at all.

Just dropping in new vifa tweeter should be good enough upgrade. It may make it a bit brighter (as vifa is 4 ohm). It is not like this speaker could not use a little more highs, besides I like it that way when listening to speakers.  Right now I could achieve desirable effect by bumping 8kHz +6dB and 16kHz +5dB. It is more than these speaker needs, but I just like it this way. My expectation after Vifa upgrade - could reduce these bumps and highs will get a bit clearer. But it is pretty acceptable right now.

What is good though, modded Lepai LP-2020A seems to be doing great job when paired with these speakers.

As expected, speakers became more of a S_peakers, not a SH_pikers after Vifa tweeter upgrade.  The sound reproduction of Vifa is far better and natural. Original tweeter could get loud, but it sounds very unpleasant, shimmering, compressed and artificial (this is observation when comparing L channel with Vifa vs R with original). Also the tweeter output level did not increase. Later it was confirmed by frequency response test to verify that crossover frequency shift (due to lower tweeter impedance) did not cause any side effect. Luckily, changes had absolutely no impact in the transition range. I was able to drop -4 dB on equalizer: 8kHz +2dB and 16kHz +1dB. BTW, I always listen to my headphones flat, no tone adjustment.

Just drop Vifa BC25TG15-04 (PE Part # 264-1040) or Vifa BC25SG15-04 (PE Part # 264-1026)  and this is it, nothing else is required - you are all set now.

[jk@home]

I would say if you just do the tweeter drop in, without the added crossover electronics, be prepared to have an EQ to tone it down a touch. That's all I did, and it's not that bad, but my equipment and cabling was already leaning towards the "warm" side. Still a little too hot without EQ.

[Brad]

Newegg has the model '41 for $69 after rebate today.
A good deal on the model with the larger woofer.

[amprocks]

Newegg has the model '41 for $69 after rebate today.
A good deal on the model with the larger woofer.

Nice catch! I think Vifa upgrade will match perfectly x-over wise (4 ohm), if such upgrade is needed. Of course we do not know the sensitivity of original tweeter. Great Price! I use Pioneer speakers as near field monitors/computer speakers. Due to my anatomy: when close to speakers I could hear perfectly when inside the so called "triangle". But it makes it a bit too close. Sometimes, I like to layback in my chair - that is when my treble sensitivity drops as sound is being deflected away of my ears. Naturally I would try to compensate with higher treble level - it only helps a little as I still could not locate position of the sound precisely. Would my ears stick out a little more, there would be no problem, but then it would be unpleasant when driving bike at high speeds - on every gain there is a loss to balance. I found inexpensive solution to correct it though - it just looks funny.

[amprocks]

So...no extra cap in series with tweeter?
Based on Dmurphy's analysis, I'm a little confused here....

Not sure how additional capacitor would attenuate tweeter. All it does is makes low frequency rolloff steeper and turns phase additional 90 degrees. If level needs to be lowered I would understand adding series resistor in tweeter circuit - it would make even better to compensate for impedance difference of tweeters. Caps are high pass filters and 4 uf cap will let all treble through, another words - it is transparent.

But the most important is your own sound perception. If you feel tweeter is dominating - just lower it until you satisfied and vise versa.  Also the FR graphs are nice, but microphones do not model our ears, so individual perception is more important.

[jk@home]

...it would make even better to compensate for impedance difference of tweeters...

What size resistor would you recommend?

[Doublej]

Newegg has the model '41 for $69 after rebate today.
A good deal on the model with the larger woofer.

I wonder why they dropped this size from the current line. Does anyone know?

[charmerci]

I wonder why they dropped this size from the current line. Does anyone know?

I would imagine that it was because the 22 with the 4" woofer goes lower than the 41 with the 5 1/4" woofer.

[amprocks]

What size resistor would you recommend?

I would add additional 2 ohm resistor in place of recommended capacitor - it would restore x-over back to original and attenuate tweeter slightly ~ -1db.

There is visible hump in treble peaking at 12.5 KHz. Right before it - it is pretty flat. It may be easier and may be even more effective just to move treble knob a notch down.

[amprocks]

I would imagine that it was because the 22 with the 4" woofer goes lower than the 41 with the 5 1/4" woofer.

Not sure it really does, the drop below 100Hz is very steep. At 50 Hz the level will be -20 db on 22. With this kind of readings it does not really matters. Theoretically 5 1/4" should beat 4" with ease. Pioneer did not disclose the +- ? dB in their specs, so it is just numbers at the moment. Also, the cabinet design did not change much, I think it was very easy to edit specs in word processor to make it look better as no tolerances are provided.

[jk@home]

I would add additional 2 ohm resistor in place of recommended capacitor - it would restore x-over back to original and attenuate tweeter slightly ~ -1db.

There is visible hump in treble peaking at 12.5 KHz. Right before it - it is pretty flat. It may be easier and may be even more effective just to move treble knob a notch down.

Thanks Amprocks, will try that. I own an old pair of Thiel 3.0s (packed away now), that could be very bright, the manufacturer knew this and also recommended padding down the tweeter with a power resistor.

Maybe something like this:

http://www.parts-express.com/mills-2-ohm-12w-non-inductive-resistor--005-2

[Flyquail56]

Not sure it really does, the drop below 100Hz is very steep. At 50 Hz the level will be -20 db on 22. With this kind of readings it does not really matters. Theoretically 5 1/4" should beat 4" with ease. Pioneer did not disclose the +- ? dB in their specs, so it is just numbers at the moment. Also, the cabinet design did not change much, I think it was very easy to edit specs in word processor to make it look better as no tolerances are provided.

This may not be exactly apples to apples, but Stereophile found the SP-BS41 LR to be -6 db at 60 Hz, the port tuning frequency. Sound and Vision magazine shows -6 db @ 59 Hz for the SP-BS22 LR.

How they actually compare when auditioning both may be another matter, I haven't heard the 41s. But driver size is only one of several factors when it comes to low frequency output. I can recall some 70s era Pioneer and Sansui 12" 3-ways that had pretty unimpressive low end. 

http://www.soundandvision.com/content/pioneer-sp-bs22-lr-speaker-system-ht-labs-measures
http://www.stereophile.com/content/pioneer-sp-bs41-lr-loudspeaker-measurements

[zieglj01]

All the same driver sizes are not a-like >> there is more to it than
what the eye will see. The Pioneer 4 inch (BS22) and the Cambridge
4-1/2 inch (S30), will out-class some 5-1/4 and 6 inch drivers in the
lower frequencies.

I for sure know that the BS22 does go down low, and is not wimpy.
Even with the Dennis Murphy modded BS22 AAL Monitors - he rates
them down to 60 hz.

HT Labs measured the BS22 -3 db at 63 hz > it will drop like a rock
after 59 hz.