new member of the HPM Club

jpciii

I like pizza
Yessiree, I'm now a proud owner of some HPM-900 speakers!(thanks, GordonW)

I must say that for once, the hype is deserved. Been listening to them for a couple of days now, and I am very impressed. They sound great playing anything from Classical to Jazz to Metal to Rap to Pop... they do it all. I don't understand some comments I've seen that have them pigeon-holed as a rock speaker. Granted, they kick out the jams with authority but they really are controlled too.

anyway, happy happy joy joy!
:yippy:
 
Drat! I was hoping he'd have those for a while, for me to save some pennies and dimes ... but you got a GREAT deal!
I have been listening to mine, too, and they needn't apologize to anyone for sound quality.
I think someone else is looking at a big pair of HPM's, too. The more the merrier, eh?
 
Originally posted by jpciii
Yessiree, I'm now a proud owner of some HPM-900 speakers!(thanks, GordonW)

I must say that for once, the hype is deserved. Been listening to them for a couple of days now, and I am very impressed. They sound great playing anything from Classical to Jazz to Metal to Rap to Pop... they do it all. I don't understand some comments I've seen that have them pigeon-holed as a rock speaker. Granted, they kick out the jams with authority but they really are controlled too.

anyway, happy happy joy joy!
:yippy:

Pioneer really overachieved with the HPM series. They're outstanding vintage speakers and are hard to beat even today. My recent experience has been with the 1500s. I consider them a rock speaker because they have great large scale dynamics, good sensitivity, very full bass and a forward midrange that makes electric guitar really pop out at you. That's a good thing but maybe not what everyone's looking for in a speaker for, say, acoustic singer/songwriters. A speaker with a flatter and more natural midband sounds more realistic to me in that context.
Just my opinion, and YMMV.
 
Play any Leo Kottke on the HPM's and you'll hear him in your living room! Stunning.
The 900's are awfully accurate and flat without muffling anything.
 
Originally posted by bully
Play any Leo Kottke on the HPM's and you'll hear him in your living room! Stunning.
The 900's are awfully accurate and flat without muffling anything.

I have a zillion Leo Kottke albums and have seen him live several times. I play Peculiaroso at least once a week - in fact it's right here on my desk. My favorite speaker for this is still my Lowthers. The instrumental tone is just right and the dynamics 'breathe' in a very natural way. The single driver makes it for me with 'simple' acoustic music. The HPM's beat the Lowthers all hollow on Led Zeppelin or The White Stripes. Believe me, I've tried to get past the multi driver format for rock but I just can't get Lowthers to work as well as a good 3 way cone/box speaker for the loud and rowdy stuff. JBL L-65s - now there ya go!
 
singer/songwriter acoustic stuff

hmm... I have no music like that in my collection. Almost everything is big. Symphony orchestras, big band, funk, soul, ROCK!, hip hop, techno, etc... but nothing stripped down and intimate. Guess I'll make a trip to the library. My small group jazz recordings sound really true to life though. (I can hear fingers on bass strings, saxophone keys clicking lightly, brushes stirring on the snare drum sound exactly right, etc)

I doubt I will find a better speaker than these for 2 to 3 times what I paid. Some may do certain things slightly better, but my pockets aren't bottomless!
 
Re: singer/songwriter acoustic stuff

Originally posted by jpciii
hmm... I have no music like that in my collection. Almost everything is big. Symphony orchestras, big band, funk, soul, ROCK!, hip hop, techno, etc... but nothing stripped down and intimate. Guess I'll make a trip to the library. My small group jazz recordings sound really true to life though. (I can hear fingers on bass strings, saxophone keys clicking lightly, brushes stirring on the snare drum sound exactly right, etc)

I doubt I will find a better speaker than these for 2 to 3 times what I paid. Some may do certain things slightly better, but my pockets aren't bottomless!

I'm not questioning your purchase by any means. Those are keepers and you're fortunate to have them. They'd make anyone's system happy. I was just explaining the typical characterization oif them as a 'rock' speaker. The set of features that makes them shine on big, dynamic material. Don't take my tastes in music and gear as gospel. Goodness knows I'm hanging off the narrow end of the bell curve on both. Listen and enjoy!
 
I have a question about the hpm speakers with the higher #'s not the 200 or 1500 models but the 500 and 900 series. I saw a pair of hpm 500's a couple of weeks ago and they looked strangely like hpm 60's are the 500 and 900 newer models of the 60 and 100 or is there something else.
Brian
 
Yes, the HPM900 is just an update of the HPM100, I think the HPM500 is just an updated HPM60 as well.

The biggest functional change I see, was that Pioneer went to the polymer-graphite cones in the HPM900/HPM500. Kinda a mixed blessing- they SOUND great, but at least with the woofers, it's EASY to bust up the cone, as that material is STOOPID BRITTLE. In fact, the woofers in JPC's HPM900s, I had to recone, for just that reason- the cones had literally shattered, most likely from someone playing them hard once the surrounds had disintegrated.

But fortunately, on the bass end, good paper cones seem to pretty much duplicate the sound of the poly graphite. I've actually listened to the HPM900s with one poly graphite woofer and one reconed with paper, and there literally was not a bit of percievable difference in the sound. I dunno what it might have done on a midrange- my guess, is that the poly graphite 5" mid does probably sound smoother than the paper/graphite cone in the HPM100... that's where I hear most of the difference between HPM100s and HPM900s, in any case.

Man, it kinda feels good... first, refoaming mzimm's S1010 10" woofers and reconing his 14" PRs and helping him get THOSE speakers up and running, then sending JPC these HPM900s, that I also did the "resto" work on. Those HPMs certainly haven't let me down yet... been worth every minute of the effort in getting them back in order!!

Regards,
Gordon.
 
Damn ... I wish I had not gottin rid of my HPM-1500s!

The more I read about the HPMs, the more I know I made a big mistake. :mad:
 
HPM-100s NIB

Gents;
I'm about to open up a pair of NIB HPM-100s. Some friends of mine found these at an estate along with a NIB SX-880 and a mint in box SX-980. I'll wait until I find my camera so I can record for posterity the unveiling of a brand new 27 year old speaker.
These don't belong to me. They're here for inspection and evaluation before they're ebayed off. Look for new highs in vintage audio pricing to be set.
I'm very interested to see if the woofer foam is OK after being in a sealed box for all this time. The theory is that ozone causes the foam to deteriorate, but nobody can test this empirically in less than about 10 years' time. This may be the test case that proves or disproves that belief.
More notes as events develop.
 
Re: HPM-100s NIB

Originally posted by Bauhausler
The theory is that ozone causes the foam to deteriorate, but nobody can test this empirically in less than about 10 years' time. This may be the test case that proves or disproves that belief.

The box, even if traditionally sealed, would still allow air and ozone to enter, and even if the speaker is in plastic, you wouldn't imagine it to be airtight. However, in such case, you'd think that the exchange would be rather slow. This'll be interesting. My guess.................the surround will have chemically deteriorated, but will be looking somewhat intact since they haven't been subjected to the driver being moved under power. i.e. age and chemical composition breakdown, ozone a minor factor.................purely a guess.......

p.s. even though I have owned some HPM900's for some months now, I haven't caught the bug, at least yet, for the HPM's. I'll work to set them up optimally and attempt to really evaluate. What is the upper cutoff of the woof, and slope?
Sounds like they are running a bit high up for my taste. Plus, I'm still not waxing rhapsodic about the driver quality, having been weaned on tweeters with 7 pound magnets. Har!
 
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Here's the whole pile of gear that I have to 'go through' tonight. The one speaker in the opened box is perfect. The woofer has a pleated cloth surround, which I forgot. The ozone/foam theory will have to be tested later. The sound is as I expected. Very clear and well balanced, with great dynamics. I listened to Rufus Wainright's album 'Poses' on this one speaker and liked it a lot. There's a good reason that these speakers are still popular 25 years after production stopped. I looked out on eBay and the 4 completed auctions for HPM-100s with highest prices ranged in price from $375 to $225. All 4 of them ended in Buy It Now. That's the sign of a speaker that's seriously undervalued when people are jumping on it for prices like that.
 
I didn't have the right setup to do an A/B of them and the 100s are taped back in the boxes now. My strong impression is that there's a powerful family resemblance in sound. Both have deep and tight bass. Lots of bottom end output and no flab despite the port. The highs sound clean and free of major peaks or bright spots. To me the mids sound a little forward, but I had the 100 at nearly ear level, which is not right. On a tilted stand on the floor the balance would be much better. You know, if it was 1977 and I was in a stereo store (I was), the sound of the 100s would make it really hard for me to go the long dollar for the 1500s. Not to dis the 1500s - they have more bottom end extension and a somewhat airier and better dispersed top register, but the 100s are SO CLOSE I'd be tempted to keep the difference in price in my pocket and go buy a couple hundred records with it. I'll bet the 150 is 98% of the 1500's sound. No wonder this was the speaker to beat in the $500 - $600 range back then. Think about it - that's a lot of speaker for the money. I recall that a lot of the speakers of the era - even the really Hi Fi ones - had one or more sonic flaws you had to live with. These HPMs sound like Pioneer's engineers stayed up late working the slipsticks until they had all of the problems beat to their satisfaction. It's really hard to find a compromise here with the possible exception of slightly under-specced crossover parts. (see thread about fire in xovr).
 
The story is that Pioneer hired Bart Locanthi from JBL to be lead designer of their new series of speaker systems. Mr. Locanthi was given the task to design a 'super L100' in the HPM-100. I am sure the AR-3a was also well in the sights of Pioneer. In fact, from what I remember hearing, and from what I have here to hear, the HPM-900 resembles a cross between the L100 Century and the AR-3a: tight bass with depth, yet with fine dynamics; accurate mids and sparkling highs. With decent efficiency they were also more available to those with more modest systems.
I know there are those who will dismiss Pioneer speakers out-of-hand-- all the better for those in the know!
 
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