Realistic Mach One vs Pioneer HPM-100!

mikey3117 said:

I also restored a pair of Mach Two's around the same time that I restored my Mach Ones and HPM-100's. I found the Two's were the better speaker than the Ones, hands down. I just don't know what it is about the Ones, I suppose it's just the nostalgia of always wanting them as a kid. Even now, knowing what I know, and owning what I own, I look at these Mach Ones and simply love them! I was that pre-teen in the late 70's that memorized the RS catalog from front to back! I also worked for RS in the late 80's and sold the Mach Two...

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Thats why I keep mine. Takes me back to a simpler time.

I owned a pair of Pioneer HPM-1100's for 20 years and I can't see the 100's being a better sounding speaker. Almost the same drivers, but bigger woofer. I always though the HPM's sounded naselly when A/B testing them against my JBL L56's & Heresy II's. I listened to the 100's a few years before the 1100's and never considered the Pioneers until I heard the bass I was looking for in the 1100's. I had my back turned looking at cassette decks when I heard the Pioneers, so I wasn't biased by the name. After eight moves the 1100's were beat to death. On the eighth move one of the Pioneers took a trip down a flight of stairs! The cabinet fell apart at the glued seems and the woofer shattered into many pieces. Noe I have a pair of Pioneer S-1010 with 15" Realistic woofer & no passive radiator.

Remember what speakers were are talking about here.I had some HPM 100s that sounded better than the Mach IIs but The L100s sounded better than the HPMs.The Machs just didn't do anything for me.

IMHO the Mach 2's with their "voicing" appeal to a broader listening audiance than the Mach 1 does. I own both, and greatly enjoy listening to the 2's, however if I have to keep only one pair, it would be the Mach 1's. For my ears, I like them both better than the larger HPM's that I have heard.

I've had refinished and rebuilt Mach One's and Mach Two's along with 2 pairs of HPM-100's. Still have the 100's...the Mach's are gone. But I did love going to Radio Shack back in the day when they were new to listen to them and, for the money, they were nice. But I'll keep my HPM-100's and still trying to find a pair of HPM-1100's for the nostalgia factor since I owned those many moons ago.

Well the HPMs certainly take the cake in the looks department. In fact, this is just me, but I think they are one of the best looking speakers to come out of the 1970s with the deep cabinet design, quality veneer finish, and silver driver frames that you can see through the black grill cloth.

pognoot said:

Well the HPMs certainly take the cake in the looks department. In fact, this is just me, but I think they are one of the best looking speakers to come out of the 1970s with the deep cabinet design, quality veneer finish, and silver driver frames that you can see through the black grill cloth.

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Not sure I agree on the looks dept. but again I'm vintage myself. With grills on I'll take Kabuki's (regardless of brand) over almost anything else made regardless of year. I love natural wood (over vinyl any day) and especially love the Lattice work on those speakers. Face (grills) off HPM's are one of my favorites (own 40's at the moment). The 40's while impressive were too bright for me so I'm hoping (stated earlier) that the 100's (whenever I get the bloody things) will be more behaved.

All the companies (like RS, Pioneer, etc.) had to know full well 15" drivers in cabs too small would not perform well, yet they did it anyway and likely due to marketing and nothing else. The CS-99's (not A models) lack bass even compared to my Mach One's (which actually have smaller volume for the woofer). But the driver is impressive in construction and the alnico is huge. I would so love to place all the drivers in a more suitably sized cabinet, but the condition of the cabinets are so bloody nice I'm not sure I can bring myself to doing it.

I too own the following;

HPM-100
HPM-200
CS-99A 2-pairs
Mach Ones
Mach Twos 2-pairs

Gave my Father a refinished pair of CS-99's after I owned them for a few years.
Though I am biased to the Mach Twos as my all time faves, I still enjoy all the rest.

I have combo'ed the 100's w/the 200's serving duty on my secondary bedroom system.
CS-99A's all four serve in my garage system.

I have since sold off all of my previous speakers except those above.
They are all keepers.

The Twos remain in my main system and will always be. The Mach Ones are great on almost any amp I have used with them. They make great subs for a surround system too!

Although one may reproduce sound better than the other depending on your application and taste, I still think they were/are good speakers that were aimed at the blue collar working man. Affordable good sounding speakers that were accessible even with thier small cabs and limitations.
Were never meant to be the holy grail or end all speaker.

madpioneer said:

...Although one may reproduce sound better than the other depending on your application and taste, I still think they were/are good speakers that were aimed at the blue collar working man. Affordable good sounding speakers that were accessible even with thier small cabs and limitations.
Were never meant to be the holy grail or end all speaker.

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Probably the biggest challenge of all, finding the ever elusive grail. Every time the subject of downsizing comes up the Mach's are always on the stay list with my Haydn's. I'm seriously thinking of putting the HPM-40's in garage duty, my only concern being how well they'll hold up to the less than friendly climate out there (Pacific Northwest). We're not as bad as Seattle (been there, done that) but we do have our share of moisture. Due to the interior of the garage I'm thinking the 40's could server well, hooked up to the Pioneer SX-680 (nice SS by the way, and one of my nicer finds).

Mach One Tier One project truely makes for a better overall speaker.
My personal experience with the Tier One led me to experiment several variations..
I started out w/a 6"x9" hole in the upper partition of the cabinet. This resulted in a very loud low end....however, the lower end music became alot more defined & detailed...
I decided, then, that the fiber used to tone down the Mid-Horn's sharpness was a downside for my ear and broad music choices...it simply lost the 'Live!' feel of the oem midrange design.
I didn't change the Cap values but I did reduce the windings on the woofer coil 32 turns...and I lowered them from 16" above the floor to 7" from the floor w/a half inch backward tilt.
I decided to use an egg box cardboard to seal the 6x9 hole...and I cut a 4" half circle...leaving the resulting lip in place and bending this lip at a 90' angle upwards towards the Mid-Horn.
To my ear, this resulted in removing alot of the Excessive Low End Volume resulting from my first internal cubic extension that I had started and, again- to my ear, tightened up the lower ends, IE- the bass drums, bass guitars and overall rhythm section of the vast music styles I listen to.
I used Steely Dan's Two Against Nature, Alive In America, Fagen's Morph The Cat & George Bensonas my listening tests...
Becker's Bass sounds like a kid skipping along on his last day of school !!! The typical one note Bass is gone...now its 3-5 !!!
If you like the Mach One for its representation, I urge you to at least try the simple modifications before ditching them.
What I've discovered over the internet these days are the people using the Mach Ones and not really setting the L-Pads correctly. It doesn't take alot of power being sent to the horns to make them harsh and the Mach One L-Pads are super sensitive. The slightest nudge is what you should use when trying to blend the mids & highs to the woofer.
I prefer to turn off the hi-horn, then slowly adjust the mid to blend w/the woofer...then slowly adjust the high end to clean up and crispen the rest of the speaker's output. This usually yields a setting between -3db and 0 for a 14x17 room.
Naturally, the smaller the room, the more distortion a Mach One can yield if you just ignore the proper settings of it's L-Pads.

Great suggestion regarding the L-pads. Next time my Mach's are in rotation (which should be soon) I'm going to try that.

HomeBody said:

Mach One Tier One project truely makes for a better overall speaker.
My personal experience with the Tier One led me to experiment several variations..
I started out w/a 6"x9" hole in the upper partition of the cabinet. This resulted in a very loud low end....however, the lower end music became alot more defined...
I decided, then, that the fiber used to tone down the Mid-Horn's sharpness was a downside for my ear and broad music choices...it simply lost the 'Live!' feel of the oem midrange design.
I didn't change the Cap values but I did reduce the windings on the woofer coil 25 turns...and I lower them to 7" from the floor w/a half inch backward tilt.
I decided to use an egg box cardboard to seal the 6x9 hole...and I cut a 4" half circle...leaving the resulting lip in place and bending this lip at a 45' angle upwards.
To my ear, this resulted in removing alot of the boominess of the first inner volume extension that I had started and, again- to my ear, tightened up the lower ends, IE- the bass drums, bass guitars and overall rhythm section of the vast music styles I listen to.
I used Steely Dan's Alive In America, Two Against Nature, Morph The Cat, George Benson, early Aerosmith, Neil Young & Crazy Horse and Miles Davis as my listening criteria...
If you like the Mach One for its representation, I urge you to at least try the simple modifications before ditching them.
What I've discovered over the internet these days are the people using the Mach Ones and not really setting the L-Pads correctly. It doesn't take alot of power being sent to the horns to make them harsh and the Mach One L-Pads are super sensitive. The slightest nudge is what you should use when trying to blend the mids & highs to the woofer.
I prefer to turn off the hi-horn, then slowly adjust the mid to blend w/the woofer...then slowly adjust the high end to clean up and crispen the rest of the speaker's output. This usually yields a setting between -3db and 0 for a 14x17 room.
Naturally, the smaller the room, the more distortion a Mach One can yield if you just ignore the proper settings of it's L-Pads.

Click to expand...

tiga said:

Great suggestion regarding the L-pads. Next time my Mach's are in rotation (which should be soon) I'm going to try that.

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Pretty close to my settings. Around -3 for the mid and around +3 for the high. Only mod thus far (recapped, but factory values) is a 4.25" hole. How did I arrive at that? Set my hole saw wrong, by an 1/8". Meant to make it an even 4". In any case noticed an improvement in bottom end doing A/B, which can be difficult if you don't have the same sounds coming out both speakers or using a test tone (which I don't presently have the ability to do at home, yet).

I like the idea of shutting down the high first, good place to start.

I am adding to this discussion almost after 10 years the last comment came in on this forum post.

I recently bought a few pairs of speakers and every time I played a pair I felt there is something missing (mostly lows, or bass). But after I played HPM100 I could instantly say "that's it", I do not need to look for anything else now.

The HPM100 is class apart. The high and mids are almost comparable on Mach Ones and HPM100s, in fact in some cases Mach Ones are better on Mids and High notes. But in lows or sub-lows HPM100 perform way better. Even though the HPM woofers are smaller they deliver much richer and deeper bass. I hear mostly Punjabi songs and HPM100s work great for me. With Mack Ones I used to run an additional Sub Woofer for those sub low notes.

I played both on an 85wpc Marantz amp.

I had no experience of how these speakers play, heard them for the first time and I could instantly make out which one I want to keep.

HPM100 costed me approx. 1.5 times more than Mach One but it is fully worth it.

The Realistic Mach series were hamstrung by their enclosures. Had RS made the enclosures optimal for those big 15's they would have been awesome. That being said they really respond to big power. I had a pair of Mach Twos (ports plugged) and when I went from a 100-wpc receiver to a Yammy MX830 the difference was amazing. Everything reproduced by that big 15 sounded more realistic, more lifelike. I've never heard the HPM100 so I don't know if it does the same thing.

Had some Mach ones for a while if you pay attention to the tweeter it was a great sounding driver, crisp and clear. It had a Phenolic dome. I cant say much about its square exit and dispersion characteristics as the mid is a dominant driver for this but the tweeter did play all the right notes and it alone impressed me.

What's the -3dB point on both ?... That's what will clarifiy my choice.
I suspect the Mach's having the biggeest 100Hz bump we've ever seen while the HPM will be more '' polite ''...