pioneer hpm-100's are they that great? help

[jocko_nc]

The problem was that the CONES were gone, not just the surrounds. The cones are formed of some graphite material that is no doubt stiffer than paper yet extremely light. However, this material degraded over time to the point where it literally fell apart. Surrounds are easy to fix. Where to get these particular graphite cones? Woofers and mids, that is a lot of trouble, IMO.

They were $20.00 each, I think. Someone bought them.

jocko

[likeitloud]

I've had no issues with the drivers, other than blowing a mid, do to a hook up mistake.
Pioneer advised coating the drivers, minus the woofer, with clear sealant to reinforce
the cone, which I did when they were re-capped, have had no issues since. The woofer
has been very durable, and look brand new, the surrounds BTW are rubber. Again, a
killer vintage speaker.

[Blue Meanie]

The woofer
has been very durable, and look brand new, the surrounds BTW are rubber. Again, a
killer vintage speaker.

BTW, the surrounds on every HPM-100 I have ever seen or owned are NOT rubber. They are made of a doped, accordion pleated paper.

Jeff

[superdougiefreshness]

BTW, the surrounds on every HPM-100 I have ever seen or owned are NOT rubber. They are made of a doped, accordion pleated paper.

Jeff

Yeah......You got that right Blue Meanie, I have the similar HPM-60's and the drivers are surrounded by a pleated paper with what looks like a thick black tar substance. I don't think I have to worry about the surrounds ever rotting away. Mine are in top condition and these pioneer HPM-60's are thirty years old with the original drivers still playing.

I can't believe this thread gets so much attention for such a short run and older set of speakers........? Anyway I love mine and play them all the time, these speakers sound great playing house and trance music and especially with movies cus there bass is deep and powerful and I don't use a sub at all - sweet

Later Dude's
SuperDougieFreshNess - San Diego,CA - land of the forever dreamers,

[jjp735i]

Not to bring back an old tread, but I just bought a pair of HPM -100 and I can't beleive how nice these are. I went and auditioned some paridigms and polk and Klipsch before deciding to buy these. I spent 300.00 for what I would say 9.8 out of 10 condition pair. Put them on a pair of low stands and they sound great. I was willing to spend up to 1000.00 for new pair of speakers, but didn't find any that gave me the sound I wanted. Sub woofer, Ha, who needs one. I left the bookselves and sub for my home theather. If anyone knows of a speaker that can complete with the Pioneer HPM for the money I would like to know.

Sorry this is just my 2 cents.

Thanks, jjp

[kelsci]

jjp; I'd like to know too. good thing that the surrounds were made out of paper that last forever in those days rather than the rubber that deteriorated. have a good time listening. kelsci.....

[captjamo]

Does anyone remember the special addition clear acrylic HPM-100's? Always thought if anyone had them in mint condition today they would have something very retro cool indeed.

[kelsci]

Yes, captjamo. In the one store called the GOLDEN TRIANGLE, they had one piece only that just demonstrated how the inside of a HPM-100 looked but I never saw a pair of working acrylic HPM-100s though.

[captjamo]

I could be wrong but I think at one time Pioneer offered a limited number for sale. I do remember that you would go into some audio departments and see a pair in the showroom long after they quit making/selling them. They were just cool and they hung around showrooms for a long time, I guess, for that reason.

[rick390]

What are the "true" British speakers you speak of?

[Dragonfly]

Does anyone remember the special addition clear acrylic HPM-100's? Always thought if anyone had them in mint condition today they would have something very retro cool indeed.

I own a pair of the clear acrylic 100s (even have the original factory cartons). Not mint condition but in pretty good shape. Thinking of selling them, but these suckers are HEAVY - shipping would be a killer. Great conversation pieces, though.

[whaleoil]

I bought a pair of HPM 100's from an estate sale back in the 70's. The guy owned them for two months before passing on~~~. His mother sold them to me for $200. The original receipt (~900 CAD) was in the box. I have moved these things all over the country and will never sell them. They are in perfect working order and continue to outperform every second set of speakers I buy.
BTW, I heard that the acrylic enclosure model doesn't sound as good as the standard model. Any truth to that? There is a set for sale on ebay ATM.

[jevuichard]

hello, i have a kenwood kr 9050 (200 wpc) and have been looking at the pioneer sx 1280 (185 wpc) but e bay has driven prices up. i like to try different stereo eqt. the kr 9050 rocks, i also have a mint kr 9600 thats no slouch. would the sx 1280 have any better sound? the wpc are close at 185 vs 200. would kill to get a good deal on a pioneer sx 1980.

[Blue Meanie]

You might be better off starting a new thread on the subject, instead of piggybacking on a thread of a totally different matter. Not to mention the thread hasn't had a reply in over a year.

[Mr Peabody]

A couple of new options, people are saying the Cerwin Vega CLS series are very good and gaining the company some respect. The speakers are still reasonably priced. I also recently became aware of the Klipsch Heritage line which is very good. I ended up buying some Heresy III's to try and if I can figure out how to squeeze them in my room may go for some Cornwalls. Unless you find them used the Cerwin Vega CLS 12 is about $600.00 as an example.
http://www.klipsch.com/na-en/products/heritage/

I had a pair of Pioneer HPM's and I thought they were 100's, they were a 10" 4-way, mid/tweeter/super tweeter. They had controls on back for mid and highs. I'm not sure what all the rage is about, I literally ended up blowing the woofer cones off the frame with a Kenwood KA-3300d. Of course, this wasn't a typical Kenwood integrated, it was over $1k in the late 80's. If I had only known...... I should have packed them babies up and took care of them.

Always check www.amazon.com for price on products, you can usually catch a deal. I usually don't buy electronics through them but if I have to buy online any way I usually find a cheaper price with them.

[kelsci]

I think Mr. Peabody that Pioneer had a similar speaker to the 100s with a 10 inch woofer in a 4 way design but I do not recall the model number. I never did see that model in the stores during the 1980s though but I saw it somewhere on my searches on the net over the past years. They could have been the HPM-80s.

[blackraven]

hello, i have a kenwood kr 9050 (200 wpc) and have been looking at the pioneer sx 1280 (185 wpc) but e bay has driven prices up. i like to try different stereo eqt. the kr 9050 rocks, i also have a mint kr 9600 thats no slouch. would the sx 1280 have any better sound? the wpc are close at 185 vs 200. would kill to get a good deal on a pioneer sx 1980.

I believe he is talking about receivers and not speakers!

I would consider looking at Vintage Sansui and Marantz receivers as well.

[dogofdoom]

hello, i have a kenwood kr 9050 (200 wpc) and have been looking at the pioneer sx 1280 (185 wpc) but e bay has driven prices up. i like to try different stereo eqt. the kr 9050 rocks, i also have a mint kr 9600 thats no slouch. would the sx 1280 have any better sound? the wpc are close at 185 vs 200. would kill to get a good deal on a pioneer sx 1980.

I run a 1280 and HPM-100's. If you haven't heard the 100's thru one of the classic pioneer receivers then you've never really heard them. They were designed to complement each other.

I use to run a Sansui 9090 with the 100's. I picked up a Pioneer SX-780 for cheap and was blown away by how good they sounded together, the 1280 even better.

If you don't have the cash for the 1250 / 80 go for one of the lower models.

Check out the Wiki entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_HPM-100

[Charlie04SiR]

Guys, I will chime in and give you my knowledge of speaker expertise, Pioneer's HPM-100 and 60's(also later production 40's) surrounds are NOT paper, they are CLOTH, accordion doped, yes, but certainly not paper, lol! AS for the Cone material the cone itself is actually wood pulp (in a sense, paper), that is then layered with carbon fiber pulp. Go ahead and pull the woofer and look at the backside of cone if you don't beleive me. The term "HPM" originally meant High Power Monitor when the line was first introduced, later changed to High Polymer Molecular. The later HPM's #'s 500-700-900-1100, were in fact a Polymer Graphite, which was very fragile and pretty much like glass. Graphite was adapted for use in cone material because it was cheaper and the theil/small parameters of graphite was far superior to paper. The only downside to graphite was it's fragility. Graphite could actually handle more power than it's paper sibling, but for fear of overwhelming warranty claims, Pioneer deliberately underrated their power handling rating. Also, when graphite distorted it could not be picked up by human hearing as easily as paper cones. So it's distortion was in a sense, more pleasant and tolerable.

[kelsci]

One thing I can say about those speakers Charlie. At least those cones and surrounds do not rot away. My friend is still using his HPM-100s. I think they are now 27 years old.

[happyfisharealive]

Having owned these speakers for a few years now, I would have to say, if you listen
to Rock and or want an extremely detailed sound, you can't go wrong. These were
designed by the same guy who designed JBL's monitors in the 70's. JBL pissed him
off, so off to pioneer he went. The power rating has been a non-issue for me. I've
driven them with a few hafler amps of over 300wpc. I recently re-capped the crossovers,
and they sound like carpet was pulled off the grills, it was a big shock in sound. These
speakers are all around performers, at home with Mozart, priest you name it. They
also more than hold there own as HT main speakers, you don't even need a sub. Mine
has never been set above 20hz. Of course they were built to rival JBL's 4312/l100 line
up, some say they do the job, some would never say it, all I know if you want a Rock
speaker that plays extremely loud, with no fall off in sound, can handle gobs of power
and can be had for about $200-$500, there a no brainer. Be advised, they are VERY
heavy for a bookshelve speaker, about 60LBS each, so plan your shipping carefully.
Good luck, if you have any questions, let me know.

I own a pair of 4312s and a pair of HPM 500s. I have never heard the 100s, but my 500s just sound way better than the JBLs. Now I know why and I am not nuts. But it was hard to except, but not now. I hope to hear the 100s and are looking for them now. Utube has signal generated tone sounds from 20 Hz on up. So I used those to test the ports on the 500s. I was amazed at the sound output from the ports. Solid and powerful even from a 10 inch driver. Someone burned midnight oil on this one.

[Zodd61]

Does anyone know how to tell if HPM 100's need caps ? I don't think mine have ever been done , but they sound amazing.

[cjpremierfour]

I am probably one of the few guys here that has recapped and changed the resistor in the HPM 100's. I have the pair with the silver port rings, not sure what year they were produced but before I changed the caps and resistor, I always found the midrange and lower treble quite "peaky".
After replacing the caps & resistor, I fired them up to find them a tad less "peaky". There was a very small difference but it wasn't much of a change. They are still forward sounding to me and I'm sure that's the way they came from the factory.
I have read that this is a "must do" for HPM owners because of the age of these components but in my case, I would be afraid to guess which ones had new caps and which ones didn't by a listening test.

FYI: I used the Dayton Audio caps, some of the guys at other websites will use the really good high cost Solen, Audiocap, etc caps instead.

This is just my exprerience, I have seen other reviews for HPM owners that have completely changed their HPM's sound for the better after the cap change out.

[Zodd61]

The guy I bought the HPM 100's had them sence new, but they had been sitting in a garage from many years. He let me have them for $80.00. I can tell a little difference when I adjust the knobs on the front of them. I found a walk through on changing them out. Never tryed this kind of thing before so I'm a little tense about it.
For the 100's
2x 005-10 Mills 10 Ohm 12W Non-Inductive Resistor
2x 027-419 Dayton DMPC-4.34.3uF 250V Polypropylene Capacitor
2x 027-220 Dayton PMPC-3.0 3.0uF 250V Precision Audio Capacitor
2x 027-462 Jantzen0.15uF 1200V Z-Superior Capacitor

Could'nt find a walk through on the HPM 40's or any parts numbers. They have some crackling when I adjust the knobs on the back.

[JoeE SP9]

If the knobs (potentiometers) make crackling noises they need cleaning. De-Oxit is the best stuff for cleaning them and noisy "pots' on receivers and amps.