skonopa Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 You guys are not going to believe this! This is probably one of the sweetests deals in vintage audio right here! Here is an absolutly beautiful pair of Pioneer CS-99A speakers that were literally headed for the trash heap! One of the guys at work asked me if I wanted these old speakers, otherwise he was just going to toss them out into the trash. I asked him how much, and he told me that I could just have them - just show up with a truck and take them away. I figured, what the hell. If they worked, then I got myself a great pair of speakers for nothing, otherwise, if they did not work, I'll just part them out and sell the good parts on eBay. Appearantly, he bought these Pioneer speakers when in Germany while serving in the Air Force. He said his stereo equipment (Pioneer reciever and other equipment), got damaged when being shipped back from Germany. He thought the speakers may still work, but was not sure, and where just taking up room at his house. Well, went by his house this evening and picked them up. Took them home and hooked them up to my old Yamaha R-V702 reciever. This is how one looks with the grill on: I also took the grills off to inspect the drivers, and this is what I found: One speaker was in perfect condition - no signs of damage or dry rot on any of the drivers. The other speaker, on the two mid-range cones, the dust-caps has some dents on them, but otherwise, perfectly intact. Any suggestions on how to fix the dented dust-caps, or am I better off just leaving it as is? It does not seem to be effecting the sound at all. As you can see in the picture, each speaker has six driver elements, a 15 inch woofer, a 5 inch mid-range, a 4 inch mid-range, one pair of 1 inch tweeters, and a tweeter-horn. (is that the so called "Super-Tweeter"? - Edit - found out the two dome tweeters are the "super-tweeters", not the horn tweeter). This is supposedly a "5-way" speaker, according to what little info I did find on the net regarding this speaker. The cabinets themselve seem to be built like a brick $#!+house. The wood is very solid and the finish, although pretty dusty and there is a "water ring" on one speaker (probably had a plant on it), but otherwise, still very good condition. I may try hitting them with some furniture polish to see how they clean up. These are heavy little buggers also. I am guessing each speaker weighs a good 60 pounds. (Edit - according to new-found info, each speaker weighs from 51 to 55 pounds, depending on who's numbers you are looking at - I was pretty close in my estimate) This is how the speakers looked on the back: As you can see, each speaker has one pair of binding posts and two knobs. Apparently those two knobs are used to adjust cross-over settings. The upper knob is labeled "Highs" with three positions "Increase", "Normal", and "Decrease". The lower knob is labeld "Mids" with the same three positions as labeled on the "Highs" knob. I tried searching on Google to find a manual and specifications on these speakers. Anybody have or know were I can find such information? As mentioned above, I hooked them up to my old Yamaha R-V702 reciever and used my trustly old Koss portable CD-player as a source, at least to test them out, as pictured here: Now, how they sounded. With the rear knobs set to "normal", these speakers came across pretty darn bright, but the sound was very clear and detailed. These speakers imaged beautifully also! My Klipsch sounded much more refined and articulate than these Pioneers. However, that is not exactly a fair comparison, as the Klipsch are hooked up to much better components (B&K amp, Denon reciever acting as a pre/pro). The brightness of the Pioneers may be attributed to the Yamaha reciever and the Koss portable CD player I am using as source. Would love to put a good set of tubes and a turn-table on those Pioneers. I may be tempted to hook them up in place of the Klipsch RF-7s and see how they sound on the B&K/Denon combo. Setting those knobs on the back of the Pioneer speakers to the "decrease" position seemed to take some of the edge off of the highs and mids, thus not coming across so bright, but still pretty bright, though. Again, I'd be willing to bet on a good set of tubes, those Pioneers will sound awesome. Also, the Pioneer speakers seem to have a high sensitivity rating, as they seem to play quite loud on the Yamaha, which is only rated at about 80 watts/channal on the two front mains. Also, I have everything set flat on the Yamaha, as well as made sure it was set to stereo-direct mode (All DSP effects off). Overall, I am quite impressed with how those Pioneer CS-99A speakers sound. Again, very clean and detailed, with great imaging. The bass on those is also very clean, tight, and well defined. I would imagine a decent sub would really help bring out the bass better. Until I get some Klipsch Heritage speakers, these will make for an excellent two-channel setup. Plus, for what I paid for them (all of $0.00 dollars!), they are pretty hard to beat. Scary to think that these beautiful speakers were literally on the way to the trash heap. Not bad for a pair of speakers nearly as old as I am. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
m00n Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Wow dude.. what a score dude. Hows the *** end on those baddies? 15" woffers they aughta sound good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juba310 Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Wow, I like the way it looks w/o the grill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wardsweb Posted March 28, 2004 Share Posted March 28, 2004 Sweet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted March 28, 2004 Author Share Posted March 28, 2004 ---------------- On 3/28/2004 11:18:28 PM m00n wrote: Wow dude.. what a score dude. Hows the *** end on those baddies? 15" woffers they aughta sound good. ---------------- The bass on those is amazingly tight and clean, but still pretty powerful. These speakers are not ported, so they won't produce any truly thunderous bass. As I cannot seem to find any specifications on these speakers, I don't know how far down they can go. I'll have to get a test CD and try a sine sweep to figure out where these things start to roll off. EDIT: Thank you very much Wardsweb! Wow, pretty impressive specs. I figure they had to be in the 90's for sensitivity, since they do play pretty darn loud on that Yammy reciever. I could not get the volume knob past 1/3 away around before those Pioneers were getting to loud for my ears. Wow, rated all the way down to 25hz. They seem to be able to reproduce that, at least with everything I tried. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael hurd Posted March 29, 2004 Share Posted March 29, 2004 Sweet haul! Great for a bedroom system, or whatever you fancy, even the garage! The dents on the dustcaps, you might try poking a small hole and using a bent paper clip, or simply gluing on new dustcaps from parts express to make them look mint. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricktate Posted March 29, 2004 Share Posted March 29, 2004 Just get the vacum hose out and suck the dent out works great,,,,,,rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j-malotky Posted March 29, 2004 Share Posted March 29, 2004 Steve Nice!!! Are you going to keep them or sell them? Looking at the specs wardsweb posted, it is amazing that a speaker using mostly direct drivers rated in at 97 db!!! Very nice. JM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gullahisland Posted March 29, 2004 Share Posted March 29, 2004 yes. use a vacuum to take the dents out of the dustcaps. DON'T POKE HOLES IN THEM!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TBrennan Posted March 29, 2004 Share Posted March 29, 2004 Steven---Yeah, Pioneer made some excellent speakers; good quality drivers and construction. They have a following. Don't believe that 25hz business though, maybe at 15db down. A 97db woofer can't respond down that low in that small a box, Hoffman's Iron Law. I'd expect them to be rolling-off around 50-60hz. Though I expect they have excellent dynamics and low distortion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted March 29, 2004 Author Share Posted March 29, 2004 ---------------- On 3/29/2004 5:57:59 PM j-malotky wrote: Steve Nice!!! Are you going to keep them or sell them? ---------------- For the time being, I'll keep them. They are kinda fun to play with, plus they are nice looking speakers. I am pretty impressed with how they sound, despite some of the talk I found elsewhere on the net about so called "Kabuki" style speakers. It seemed the general consensous is that they are good sounding and good quality speakers. My own experience seems to be bearing that out. BTW, for those that suggested I use a vacuum to remove the dents in the mid-range dust caps, I tried that, but it did not work. Maybe I just got a junky vacuum that is not doing the trick. I have a smaller, but more powerful vac I'll try. I was tempted to try the "poke a hole" method and pull the dents out with a bent paper-clip, then put a dab of superglue over the hole to "seal it up" again. Maybe, I'll just go and leave it as is, since it does not seem to be effecting the sound as is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skonopa Posted March 29, 2004 Author Share Posted March 29, 2004 ---------------- On 3/29/2004 6:34:15 PM TBrennan wrote: Don't believe that 25hz business though, maybe at 15db down. A 97db woofer can't respond down that low in that small a box, Hoffman's Iron Law. I'd expect them to be rolling-off around 50-60hz. Though I expect they have excellent dynamics and low distortion. ---------------- Actually, you are correct. I found this thread on the Audio Karma forums, while searching for more info on these speakers. There was a link in that thread to this thread where somebody attached a page from a sales pamplet on these speakers showing a frequency reponse graph. Actually, they started rolling off at around 80hz and are good 10db down at 50hz. Not very impressive for a 15inch woofer. Still, as you expect, they do have excllent dynamics and low distortion. Even with the high rolloff on the bass, the bass did still sound clean with some presence. Over all, I am pretty happy - hell, considering that I did not pay anything for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Petrol Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 awesome deal! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-MAN Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Steve, try some masking tape on the dents; it's a matter of acheiving the right amount of adhesion to "pull" the dent while not actually sticking. But it WILL do the job for you. Might take more than one try but when you get it, there you go! DM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverSport Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Nice Score! Bill Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hooting_monkey Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 Try putting some masking tape on the dents and leaving them for like 5 mins, then slowly pull on the tape, it should pull the caps out too. Then carefully peel the tape off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joebass Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 nice looking speakers. you should be able to pull out the dents in the dust covers with a vacuum, but you'll need to decrease the hose size with a peace of small plastic hose otherwise your just pulling the entire tweeter out, hose must be smaller then the dent, good luck, Joe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott0527 Posted June 30, 2005 Share Posted June 30, 2005 I LOVE those grills. I had a pair of those a few years ago. The work that went into those grills is amazing. And your right, the overall build quality was extermely good. I was pretty disappointed in the sound. But then again, maybe I should have freshened up the crossovers. My 71 Heresy's didn't sound all that great until I rebuilt the crossovers. I didn't know enough back then to even look much inside the Pioneers. Killer retro look speakers though and what a great price. I love it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djk Posted July 1, 2005 Share Posted July 1, 2005 Sansui 5-ways with sneeze thru wind vents, and now Pioneer CS99DOGs. Now if you had a pair of Pioneer CS700R I'd take them off your hands. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arfandbark Posted July 1, 2005 Share Posted July 1, 2005 Sure beats the poo out of my Infinity SM112's for $34.97 + $70.00 shipping.... Darned Infinty speakers sound not so bad, though..... Congrats! WOOF! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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