[Thermal Alchemy]

$66 brand new in the box eBay
I bought these at this price as test speakers secondary back up because so many reviewer‘s with big names in a lot of followers recommend them at the price point even after a rocky mountain audio fest . All I can say is that they suck I’m glad I did not pay full price for them. If I bought them used for $30 I would not feel so bad but even at $66 brand new out-of-the-box I barely feel they are worth that price point. Test room size 12‘ x 8‘. Speaker placement 2 feet from the back wall 1 foot from the side walls . Source music from Flack files and HD , you Tube‘s highest quality that’s not saying much , Spotify, source amplifiers, #1: marantz 2218 I just recapped the power supply and amp driver board with all high-quality Nitchicon New fets and new transistors. Amp#2: SMSL SA98E. Amp #3: Amp Camp Amp Mono blocks driven by separate left and right linear power supply’s. Speakers used for comparison. 30-year-old surroundsound speakers from my old Harman Kardon AVS10 3 inch drivers. Comparison speaker number two my hand built fostex bk-20 folded horn with Fostex FE206EN drivers. Music genre used classical jazz New Age Indy and Pop. In all comparisons I was very disappointed in these pioneers. Except in one situation at low volumes they were OK near field or my mother who has very sensitive acute hearing in a close confined space in a quiet room then these speakers would be OK . My hearing starts to roll off at 12.7 kHz and I’m stone cold death after 15,000 kHz and I can say the highs on the speakers are muddy dull lackluster . My sons ears on the other hand can hear those mouse illuminators that you plug in the walls outlet to scare away rodents in your house. As soon as my son enters anyone’s house he hast to go around and unplug them out of the outlets because they hurt his ears and disturb him from reading or studying or watching TV. And he says the highs on the speaker sucks in comparison with the other two above mentioned speaker is being used for comparison. On all three amplifiers when you try to turn up the volume the speakers distort badly starting to pop up and click and snap. You definitely cannot enhance the base by turning up the bass or using a based boost feature due to the distortion on the base driver on the pioneers. Hands down compared to the other two speakers there is no comparison. But I am glad I found this thread even though it would be a waste of money to purchase new drivers to stick into these cheap cabinets that need so much mods to make them sound better . As a DAC used for all three amplifiers from the source music A ifI Black Label. Computer for source used Microsoft surface pro 4 and iPhone 6S.
I will put a little time and effort into trying to modify the cabinets and follow other people‘s recommendations without spending money with resources I have I already have a sound deadening material is sound reflecting materials sound absorbing materials and sound deadening adhesives. Let’s see what I can do with other people’s recommendations to make the sound a little bit better

      I was thinking of buying Andrew Jones uin_fi B5. But after hearing all the rave reviews about this little Pioneer speaker produced by Andrew Jones and thinking of laying down several hundred dollars for another Andrew Jones speaker the elac UniFi B5 I think I will not take my chances of getting ripped off and disappointed for that kind of cash I'll just build my own speaker. I think I'll wait another year or two and pick up a used pair or an open box pair or returns of the elac UniFi B5 if I could get them around $150 then I believe they will be worth the value even if I'm disappointed.
At first when I heard these speakers I thought maybe I got ripped off and was sold fake pioneers with cheap Chinese knock-off drivers not Originals.. but the Box definitely looks original Pioneer Factory. The speakers look authentic nicely built good detail to Quality of course when you knock on the speaker it rings for the price I understand that's acceptable. Possibly they're buying their drivers from a new source and they no longer care about this product line and downgraded the materials. My production date says August 2018 with a serial number sticker on the back of a very high-quality nothing I would think a knockoff fake company would try to reproduce. I will put some time to perform some modifications on the pioneer speakers after I've completed building Nelson pass BA3 front end for my preamp balanced for my monoblock amp Camp amps version 1.6
Possibly later I will pull the drivers out of the speaker cabinets and take photographs and post them so others can look at them to tell me if they are different manufactured by a different manufacturer then earlier versions of this speaker. Or possibly I got a manufacturer's defect were they had a whole line of speakers that were improperly manufactured the drivers for some reason and I was just one of the Unlucky ones who got shipped a bad batch

[FullRangeMan]

Welcome Thermal 
About modify cabinets see this>
https://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=100689.0

[Phil A]

Welcome!

[JLM]

Welcome.

IMO you're 100% right.  So much fanboy support for Andrew Jones designs!  The Pioneers were built cheap and sounded like it, never understood the hoopla and won't waste time trying to improve them (a built to a price point product).  His original Elac speakers were better, the Uni's better yet, but nothing all that outstanding. 

You seem to be a DIYer, so my suggestion, JBL LSR305/Mk2 ($300/pair active 2-way monitors) probably won't float your boat, but they really stomp anything passive for the same price.  It's hard to compete with the big boys when they put their best efforts into a product. 

[charmerci]

I've had the Pioneer SP-BS22-LR's before (assuming that's what you have) and they sounded fine to me. The way you describe it sounds like a damaged pair(?)