Pioneer HPM-100 Recapping Walkthrough

[xoaphexox]

You're good to go. Someone already did the recap and resistor upgrade on those crossovers.

 

[RockCityTX]

You're good to go. Someone already did the recap and resistor upgrade on those crossovers.

SCORE!

Good deal... I had a feeling that this was the matching thread for the components that I saw on my crossover. Will go back and read through all 14 pages now that I can view images properly and get more familiar with everything. Appreciate the confirmation.

These sound great already with my other recent purchase (Pioneer SX-780)... I was concerned that buying a vintage receiver with "only" 45W per channel wasn't going to really drive these speakers convincingly.... but it really gets down and boogies even at only 1/4 trottle on the volume knob.

-G

 

[BmWr75]

Looks like the inductors have most likely been upgraded two. My guess is the originals were iron core inductors, the ones in it now are air core.

 

[mitchalee]

A bit of a sidebar here: my caps, and resistor seem fine. It's the pots that aged very badly. No longer turn smoothly. No spaying or working or messing about does any more than make them marginally, pathetically almost functional. Well, I really hate all pots anyway other than the clickers Sansui used. They last decades. These Pioneer contunuously variable pots are crap. But they have really long stems, so they are hard to replace!

I now have 2 HPM-100 which someone routed out the holes to fit different drivers and other similar abominations. All of which I have restored back to factory specs with plywood, wood putty, sanding, and lots of carpentry. I also have scrounged up 6 sets of the 2 pots by hook, crook, and eBay.

Will try to fix them all and see which ones wind up best out of the lot. Then get these HPM-100 back into original working condition.

Frankly, I estimate that they would sound better just replacing the pots with resistors to get a pleasant balance between the woofer, mids, and tweeters. As is with no high end attenuation the HPM-100 are shrill. But I am a restore, not re-design type, so the pots stay!

Also, there is a lot of talk anbout the supertweeter being inaudible. And that it is best disconnected. And that is how mine arrived. OK, damn it! They sounded shitty without the supertweeters. The imaging was narrow and dead. The high end was steely. And there was no "air" in classical pieces. Once I added the supertweeter back, the HPM-100 really bloomed. Great speakers! But only WITH the supertweeter to balace the nice warm, somewaht elevated, soild, satisfying bass.

Enjoy!

MItch

 

[A B]

Hi everyone, recapped my 100's last week and documented the restoration (crossovers, cabinet refinish, grill recover). I have a 13 page Word doc if anyone is interested. Steps with pix. Let me know I can email you a copy.

hi, i have bought a pair of hpm-100 and i plan to recap it. please share with me the steps. thank you.

 

[dcgibby]

hi, i have bought a pair of hpm-100 and i plan to recap it. please share with me the steps. thank you.

There're dozens of threads about this. Google is your friend. Or, just replace like for like. They're all clearly marked. Now if you want to modify the crossovers, that's a whole different can of worms. Again, dozens of threads about this as well.

 

[1Toolfan]

Tonight I recapped my third pair of Pioneer HPM-100's, so I decided to take photos along the way in hopes that it might help someone who has never attempted a recap before, either on these particular speakers or others.

My first step was to purchase parts. For this, I chose Partsexpress. My cart was as follows:

2x 005-10 Mills 10 Ohm 12W Non-Inductive Resistor $3.50
2x 027-419 Dayton DMPC-4.3 4.3uF 250V Polypropylene Capacitor $1.86
2x 027-220 Dayton PMPC-3.0 3.0uF 250V Precision Audio Capacitor $2.79
2x 027-462 Jantzen 0.15uF 1200V Z-Superior Capacitor $7.68

My goal was to replace all three capacitors as well as the resistor for each crossover. I have chosen Solen brand capacitors in the past and find them to be brighter than the Dayton counterpart. They are basically the same price, and since the HPM-100 to my ears is a pretty forward speaker, I went with the Daytons as to not exacerbate the issue.

Here is the speaker prior to doing anything:

Here we see the back of the speaker. Behind this rear panel is the crossover.

Here are the parts that arrived. Note parts shown are for both crossovers:

You will need a phillips head screwdriver to remove the six screws that hold the back panel/crossover to the unit. This part comes off easily.

To fully remove the crossover, I found it easiest to remove the super tweeter from the front. It is attached with four phillips head screws. This will allow you to take the yellow (+) and white (-) wires off the back of the supertweeter. They are the socket-kind and do not require unsoldering. At this point I was able to reach through the speaker from the back and remove both wires from the woofer (blue and white) so that I would not have to mess with unscrewing and removing the woofer. There was plenty of room for my arm. A penlight will help here if you arent in a bright enough room to see the color of the wires as they attach to the woofer posts.

Now that you have the crossover in hand, there are four more screws that hold the crossover board to the black plastic holder, and you can unscrew the speaker posts themselves to allow the crossover to come off completely.

At this point you can use wire clippers, scissors, or needlenose pliers to remove the old caps and resistor. I choose to clip off the old parts and then use desoldering braid to suck up the solder on the pads. The clipped leads that remain just fall out.

Now put the new parts in where you took the old parts out and solder them in well!

It is a pretty straightforward task. Now sit back and enjoy!!


Rob

Are you still an active member?
If so can you send me the pics associated with your descriptions. I am going to attempt restoring mine.

 

[xoaphexox]

I think these were the originals? It's been a long long time!

 

[1Toolfan]

I think these were the originals? It's been a long long time!

And did you do a direct replacement vs upgrade anything? Ill be taking this project on soon...

 

[xoaphexox]

And did you do a direct replacement vs upgrade anything? Ill be taking this project on soon...

Pretty sure it was just a direct replacement.