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Unknown 40+ year old Pioneers with DN-5 Crossover

drbiggles

drbiggles

I like to pull weeds.
PioneerDN5001.jpg


Heavy sigh. I just can't pass up anything for free. All I knew is that they were large, Pioneer and had real wood veneer. He did list them as a DN-5 model, but I could find no such model on the net. I did find some old crossovers listed as DN-6 and a 7, but that was it. Turns out the crossover is marked as a DN-5. They were listed as working fine, but missing a woofer and the other had bad foam surround. Yeah, working fine.

PioneerDN5002.jpg


The enclosures are unmarked as to a model. Does anyone know? Or does it even matter?

What do I have here? Is it worth sourcing a replacement woofer?

They are an imaged pair, I thought that was kinda cool.

The squawker is marked as a 16 ohm rig, but the crossovers had been switched to 8 ohms, just something I noticed.

Are they worth my time and effort to get back to Wife Approved?

PioneerDN5003.jpg


PioneerDN5004.jpg


PioneerDN5005.jpg


PioneerDN5006.jpg


PioneerDN5007.jpg


PioneerDN5008.jpg


PioneerDN5009.jpg


PioneerDN5010.jpg


PioneerDN5011.jpg


Biggles
 
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drbiggles said:
Are they worth my time and effort to get back to Wife Approved?
Click to expand...

How do they sound? Based on a glance at the pictures it doesn't seem to me that any more than a wipe of Howard's Restore a Finish is required to get them up to WAF.
 
markshan said:
How do they sound? Based on a glance at the pictures it doesn't seem to me that any more than a wipe of Howard's Restore a Finish is required to get them up to WAF.
Click to expand...

One is missing a woofer and the other has bad foam surround, no idea how they sound. I was told they "worked".

And after a closer inspection (the guy I got them from was really clueless), the enclosure with the missing woofer has all the installation bolts for the woofer pounded over. And the one with the woofer, has a few pounded over, the woofer was tilted to the side, then a screw was added to hold it in place. He obviously lost the screws and made do what what he had.

Biggles
 
Well, that certainly changes things. Plug the cabinet parameters into the tool at Parts Express and see if you find a cheap, high sensitivity woofer that is a close match. Mirror imaging does lead one to believe that there was at least a little thought given to their construction. Or just gut the whole thing and E-Wave. The cabs look decent.
 
markshan said:
Well, that certainly changes things. Plug the cabinet parameters into the tool at Parts Express and see if you find a cheap, high sensitivity woofer that is a close match. Mirror imaging does lead one to believe that there was at least a little thought given to their construction. Or just gut the whole thing and E-Wave. The cabs look decent.
Click to expand...

Cabinets and grills are really decent, but even with the woofer weigh about 4 pounds.

Gotcha on the parts express thing, will attempt that later today. I need to start dinner!

Biggles
 
Well, if you decide to move forward we all know already that you will add copious bracing. It's how you roll.
 
markshan said:
Well, if you decide to move forward we all know already that you will add copious bracing. It's how you roll.
Click to expand...

If, and that would be a MUST.

It's too bad about the woofers. Here's the one, it looks pretty decent. It was held in by 3 different screws, about 2mm screwed in to the wood. They basically just fell out. The wires were hand wound around the terminals, but it doesn't look damaged though.

PioneerDN5012.jpg


Biggles
 
Those look to nice "upgrade" with generic woofers. Very vintage JBL-like. I would do a proper restore on them. It might take a while to find a woofer, but for me it would be worth it. Set up a search on Japanese eBay and hope for the best.
 
Looks just like the inside of my cs 77's
I happen to be parting them out if you need the woofers
Cloth surrounds and alinco magnets. 8 ohm
 
That horn tweeter looks like a cheap piezo-electric unit swapped in after the originals were likely fried by being over-driven. These are franken-speakers at this point and should be treated as such.
 
Smoking Joe said:
Looks just like the inside of my cs 77's
I happen to be parting them out if you need the woofers
Cloth surrounds and alinco magnets. 8 ohm
Click to expand...

Thank you for offering up that information, I've noted that down. Others who have been following my threads already know, but I don't have an income. It isn't possible for me to buy anything at the moment. This will change, and it could possibly change soon, but not now. I may need to just set them aside for the future. That's okay with me, at least I have them!

The wife just got home and found me with my new find. She laughed and rolled her eyes, "Oh honey". She really digs the grills.

I'm really excited about these things.

Biggles
 
stickman said:
That horn tweeter looks like a cheap piezo-electric unit swapped in after the originals were likely fried by being over-driven. These are franken-speakers at this point and should be treated as such.
Click to expand...

I did a quick search and found a thread where someone talked about Herald Electronics made speakers for Pioneer in the late 60's. I'll haul them off to the garage and pull one, see what it looks like closer up.

I did notice that one tweeter has 2 wires connected and the other has 3. And the enclosure without the woofer has had the wires removed. The other one is filled with wires all over the darned place. They'e clearly been messed with in some capacity.

Later tonight I'll see if I can make heads er tails of it, sleuth it out.

Biggles
 
Looks like yet another fun restoration project! I agree with the above poster, they deserve a proper restoration. By the way they look, I 'm guessing mid 60's. Being that there's probably not a whole lot of these out there, I'd restore em. Looks like the surrounds are the inverted style.

Man Biggles, you got speaker radar!
 
PioneerDN5013.jpg


stickman said:
That horn tweeter looks like a cheap piezo-electric unit swapped in after the originals were likely fried by being over-driven. These are franken-speakers at this point and should be treated as such.
Click to expand...

I'll go for cheap piezo tweeter. But not swapped out, these look very original by their installation and age. All the drivers are original, these are not franken-speakers.

doctorolds said:
Here is a link about the PM-12A in the pictures (late 60's) http://audio-database.com/PIONEER-EXCLUSIVE/unit/pm-12a-e.html
Here is another link for the DN-5 crossover: http://audio-database.com/PIONEER-EXCLUSIVE/unit/dn-5-e.html
Link for the attenuators, AT-8A/AT-16A: http://audio-database.com/PIONEER-EXCLUSIVE/unit/at-16a-e.html

They almost look like CS-63's from the outside, good luck
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Thank you! The attenuators are WAY cool, and built quite well.

GD70 said:
Looks like yet another fun restoration project! I agree with the above poster, they deserve a proper restoration. By the way they look, I 'm guessing mid 60's. Being that there's probably not a whole lot of these out there, I'd restore em. Looks like the surrounds are the inverted style.

Man Biggles, you got speaker radar!
Click to expand...

They do deserve a proper restoration. I'm just not sure how all this is going to come together at the moment. The internal wiring is an absolute MESS. I may or may not have the mad skills to rewire these correctly.

Another thing I'm not quite sure about yet are the grills/baffles. The noob I got them from bent over ALL the mounting bolts for the woofers. I'm not sure how to deal with that, yet. The grills may or may not come loose from the baffles, dunno yet.

I have questions and no answers.

Biggles
 
drbiggles said:
PioneerDN5013.jpg




I'll go for cheap piezo tweeter. But not swapped out, these look very original by their installation and age. All the drivers are original, these are not franken-speakers.



Thank you! The attenuators are WAY cool, and built quite well.



They do deserve a proper restoration. I'm just not sure how all this is going to come together at the moment. The internal wiring is an absolute MESS. I may or may not have the mad skills to rewire these correctly.

Another thing I'm not quite sure about yet are the grills/baffles. The noob I got them from bent over ALL the mounting bolts for the woofers. I'm not sure how to deal with that, yet. The grills may or may not come loose from the baffles, dunno yet.

I have questions and no answers.

Biggles
Click to expand...

Don't rush anything! You got projects in the works. You got time to find schematics, a woofer eventually and so on. If you gettin itchy, do the cab work, that costs almost nothing and you'll feel good doing something to them.

Are both speakers wiring a mess, or is one hopefully somewhat in tact to use as a guide? I'm sure you'll get a lot of help on these.
 
I have been searching but have not had much luck. Maybe related to cs-A31, AS-303a, or AS-304. Good luck!
 
OoOoO, I'll check out those model numbers tomorrow. Thank you!

And? I've been thinking the same. I've got too many projects to dive in to this one at the moment. I'm going to stack them in my storage area and see how this thread rolls on. Hopefully someone will pop in with some pertinent information of some ilk and I can make some progress.

xo, Biggles
 
I believe that the screws with the rings on the inside release the grill assembly.

BTW, if you use that network the wiring should be simple. Just strip it and start from scratch.
 
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drbiggles said:
I'll go for cheap piezo tweeter. But not swapped out, these look very original by their installation and age. All the drivers are original, these are not franken-speakers.
Click to expand...

My guess is that those were replaced. They certainly appear to be piezos. Why would they use them with a heavy three way network? Plus, the mounting hardware doesn't match the others. I hate to disagree with you, but my guess is that they originally had a PT-3. Same size, would line up to the existing hole.

http://audio-database.com/PIONEER-EXCLUSIVE/unit/pt-3-e.html
 
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