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Pioneer HPM-100 successful crossover mod!

Big Tuna said:
Superb job there, Matt!

The Xover points of the HPM-100 are 3000Hz for mid, 4000Hz for tweeter, and 12kHz for the super tweeter. There definitely is alot of overlapping frequencies being carried out through the drivers, and that's the way they were designed, primarily to "rock the house" and that is what sold them. The pairs I listened to sounded nice, but exactly as you describe, harsh & shrill top end. I prefer to tune my speakers with a low-pass butterworth network for woofer, because when drivers overlap frequencies, that makes for a pretty colored/shrill output and will give me severe headaches.All you need to do is eliminate the overlapping frequencies between drivers, and you'll have a winner everytime. Each driver has it's limits and you need to test them to see where they roll off at at the bottom and up high.
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Sounds alot like the work I've done on my Mach Two's :thmbsp:
 
Sounds like an interesting mod and I'm going to try it too. About mounting the inductor--Should I be worried that using hot glue will melt the insulatng stuff off of the inductor wire?
 
Eventually I was able to get the glue off holding the inductor, so I tried out this mod. I didn't care for it.

In comparing the modded speaker to the stock, the midrange was a lot louder, which can be dialed back on the pad, but in all the speaker's balance didn't sound right to my ears. Yes, the woofer is crossed lower, but I came away unconviced that the midrange in the HPM-100 does a better job producing midrange frequencies than the woofer.

After several hours of testing with different styles of music and speaker placement, I ultimately went back to the stock crossover.
 
My experience has been that the HPM midrange driver plays high frequencies better than it plays midrange frequencies.
 
You guys aren't the only ones working on a "new and improved" HPM 100. Pioneer turns 75 next year and big things might be in the works for their most celebrated speaker.
 
audiomagnate said:
You guys aren't the only ones working on a "new and improved" HPM 100. Pioneer turns 75 next year and big things might be in the works for their most celebrated speaker.
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That sounds interesting. Hope they do it really right, if they do it. Is your source of this news a "good" source?
 
Good news. Should be intersting development. Based on your gear collection I am assuming you don't work for Pioneer but a spouse or close friend or relative. Sounds like you should have more Pioneer gear!
 
FWIW the hpm-100 woofer has a spike @around 2500hz. The couple I've measured roll off pretty smoothy from 1250 (down 3db) to 2000hz (down 10db) then the +6db spike (or +16db depending on how you look at it) @ 2500hz ... and not descending back to 800-1Khz levels till around 5000hz.

I'm using the woofer in a different application and have it LP @ 1880hz LR4 with a 2Q -7db notch @2700hz. This makes use of the roll off starting @1250hz and kills the spike pretty well.
 
Is the HPM-100 really Pioneer's most "celebrated speaker"?? It came out in 1976. Pretty sad if that's the case.
 
They might not be the last word in fidelity but Pioneer sold a heluva lot of them. And say what you want but there's still lots of love for them 35 years later. They're not my cup of tea either but I've owned a couple of pair as well during my audio journey.
 
Oh I love them, but that was 36 years ago and that's a long time for a company to come up with new innovations that capture the same excitement as something did in 1976.
 
pognoot said:
Is the HPM-100 really Pioneer's most "celebrated speaker"?? It came out in 1976. Pretty sad if that's the case.
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Most well known and most sold. I wouldn't be surprised if they sold more pairs of these than any other manufacturer of any other speaker. Anyone know if this is the case?
 
I'm almost certain it's not the case. I'd be willing to bet there are several Bose models, especially recent ones, that have sold more units.

The HPM-100 certainly sold very well and is an iconic design, but it was a somewhat expensive speaker in the day. One of the reasons you see so many on the used market today is that unlike many/most models of the era, there were no foam surrounds to rot or other driver deterioration issues, so an unusually large percentage of them are still with us.

I love the HPM-100 myself. If there is an anniversary version coming, I'd be very interested.
 
What would you call it? I'd call it the HPM-100MK2 or HPM-100a.

Keep the iconic look of silver frames and a white woofer (or woofers.. perhaps dual 8") but with modern driver technology. Keep the walnut veneer. Time for that to come back in style, anyway.
 
I would bet that the large Advent outsold the HPM-100 many times over. The bad news is they aren't planning on using an HPM super tweeter.
 
Yes forgot about the Bose machine. You are probably right. Nobody in the history of home audio has sold more stuff I'm guessing.
 
O.K.--I did the same mod. My, those new parts are a lot bigger, aren't they? I did use a Goop product for glueing the air inductor down. I like the new sound so far--definitely takes a lot of harshness out, and yes, the midrange speaker is a lot louder than before (I dialed it back, too). Subjectivity tests are still underway...
 
I love my HPM 100's. I've tryed to find better. No luck so far. Advents, AR 3a'a, Wharfedales. I believe these are an all purpose speaker though. They recreate music like no other in my opinion. Modded or not. I might try this on my other pair though just to see. I remember people talking alot about the cerwin vega back in the day. I know HPM 100's good for Rock and Roll. I wonder if maybe some old Cerwin Vega's might give them a run for their money?
 
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