US-made Pioneer "Project" speakers

Thanks to Gary Kaufman, Loctite contact cement, and MAT Electronics, I've been on a refoaming rampage. This weekend's voluteers were a pair of Pioneer "Project 100A" speakers.

I know there's been a little discussion of the US made (and probably US-designed) "Project" speakers here before, but I never saw a pair quite like these. These are ported three-ways with 10" woofer, a dome (!?!) MR, and the venerable (still available, I believe) Pioneer 2" cone tweeter.

These sound good... very good. Unbelievably good, with Mr. HF-81. Something magical about dome midranges. Bass is clean (i.e., they didn't tune for boom). Dig the cool "Pioneer" dustcap (yes, I've moved on to refoaming without de-dustcapping).

One of the two dome drivers was kaput, but Dave "planetsofta" Dlugos provided me with one at modest cost. The dome appears to be phenolic (?) and the magnet is huge.

Just listened to "Ain't That A Shame" from Cheap Trick's Live at Budokan on these (b&o TX-2 tt and Bottlehead Seduction phono preamp). Mmmmm... sounded like those pubescent Japanese girlz were screaming right in my living room. Umm, let me rephrase that...

I have a pair that one of the woofer magnets came apart. It is nearly impossible to get them to line up. I work on it occasionally when I want to frustrate myself.

Other Pioneer Projects

Courtesy of Mr. Crotalus:

http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=32091&highlight=Pioneer+Project



The tweeter of the Project 80 and 100 looks like the MR in the 100A's...

Just came across something similar- a pair of Pioneer XD-11s. 10" 3-way, all cone. Had a pair of these long ago, and swapped out the tweeter for an Audax TW74 (1/2" dome)... which sounded very good. However, these I just got recently, I just refoamed and left stock... and remarked to myself, just how decent they were. Pretty darn good sound; like the Project models, these were also tuned for tight bass rather than "boom". And they'll flat-out play LOUD too...

Regards,
Gordon.

Here you go mhardy......I wouldn't leave you hanging.

Here you go mhardy......I wouldn't leave you hanging

Click to expand...

Gee, thanks! What other goodies do you have in that brochure???

If y'all ever find a pair of these cheap/free, I'd suggest that you grab 'em.

Have had a pair of project 100a's since the late 70's.I am original owner, was Pioneer dealer employee (their repair tech for several years) and bought them as used demonstrators. About 15 years ago the suspensions on the woofers gave out and I replaced them with comparably speced RS woofers. While apart I put better back input terminals on them. Of course the grilles deteriorated even tho I kept them out of direct sunlight. So the tweeters, midranges, cabinets and and any crossover components (I don't remember and am not curious enough to re-open them) are original. They still sound darn good!! But I'm starting to question the space they take up.. they are fed by a sx-636 reciever (a little scratchy on the am/fm/aux/phono switch and volume control but otherwise ok) and a ctf-9191 cassette deck (level controls almost fossilized immobile + ff/rew doesn't but play/record are still spectacular).
Shudder I couldn't get a pioneer turntable back then so a rotel 2500 had to suffice(belt??).Later in the 80's a defective phillips $1000 cd player that factory repair totally destroyed was traded for a magnavox cdb-450 cd deck(which still works fine).