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Such quibbles faded to insignificance the longer I listened to the Elite Reference speaker system. In the past, Japanese speakers have had limited success in the US—at least apart from economy-oriented, single-branded systems—but Pioneer's design team has put together a speaker package that could change a lot of preconceptions. From vocals to large-scale orchestral fare, the Elite Reference system handles musical material with ease. The Fairfield Four's I Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray (Warner Bros. 46698-2) is clean throughout, with an unmuddled midbass and lower midrange. Armada (Virgin…
Before listening to the system, I was a little concerned that the TZ-S700 surrounds might be the weak link. As the most simple speakers in the package, I'm sure they were designed to keep the overall system price under control. Why not design the surrounds with the same IRIS driver that graces the front speakers for better integration with the rest of the system?
I need not have worried. I normally prefer more diffusive surrounds of the dipole or bipole variety, but the Pioneer TZ-S700s admirably demonstrate the considerable attractions of more conventional, direct-radiating surrounds.…
Sidebar 1: Specifications
TZ-F700: three-driver, four-way shielded L/R speaker
Drivers: two-way IRIS compound mid-tweeter; 6.5" midbass injection-molded cone; 12" injection-molded cone subwoofer (powered)
Frequency range: 25Hz-25kHz (tolerances not specified)
Crossover frequencies: 120Hz, 450Hz, 2kHz
Impedance: 8 ohms nominal
Sensitivity: 92dB/W/m
Maximum peak output: 112dB SPL (on program)
Bass amplifier power: 300VA
Recommended amplifier power: 10-150W @ 8 ohms
Dimensions (footprint): 51.25" by 15.75" by 21.36" (H by W by D)
Weight: 60 lbs.
Serial #:…
Sidebar 2: Associated Components
Audio/Video Sources: Theta DaViD DVD player, Pioneer DV-09 DVD player, Pioneer CLD-99 LD/CD player
Processor: Meridian 861
Power Amplifier: Proceed AVP
Cables: Madrigal CZ-Gel audio interconnects, XLO VDO audio interconnects, XLO VDO speaker cables
Sidebar 3: Driving an Onboard Powered Subwoofer
The most obvious way to drive a powered subwoofer is directly from the subwoofer output of a surround processor (ie, with a line-level signal). But there's another way. If you tap the output of the appropriate channel from the main system amplifier, you can use that signal to drive the subwoofer. The subwoofer must be designed for this application (many are), providing both line-level and speaker-level inputs.
With the Pioneer TX-F700 and TZ-C700, this is the only way to drive the built-in, powered subwoofer; in this case, the…
Sidebar 4: Measurements
John Atkinson performed the measurements on the Pioneer TZ-F700 and TZ-C700 after I completed all of my listening tests.
Beginning with the TZ-F700, its sensitivity is a very high 93.6dB/W/m (B-weighted). This is about 5dB higher than is typical for, say, a THX loudspeaker, and indicates that the Pioneer should work well with modestly powered amplifiers. The impedance is shown in Fig.1. The minimum value, 3.4 ohms, falls at 387Hz. While this is close to the IRIS compound mid-tweeter's rated crossover frequency, the nearfield measurements indicate that this…
The sensitivity of the TZ-C700 center channel is 91.3dB. This is respectably high, and significant only in that it will require just under twice as much power as the 2.3-dB-more-sensitive TZ-F700 to produce the same output level. For reasons we could not determine, the TZ-C700 cut in and out during the impedance measurements (it still functioned normally in normal operation), so no impedance curve is presented here. However, since the TZ-C700 and TZ-F700 use the same IRIS driver, it's reasonable to assume that, above 450Hz, the TZ-C700's impedance is at least similar to that of the larger…
It was the subhead that caught my eye: "Today's super-rich just don't seem interested in $300,000 stereos." Clunky writing, sure. But at least it gave some idea of what the next 2000 words were about, and spared the pain of having to read further.
Had they soldiered on, readers of the July 9th edition of the New York Times could have picked from a lineup of the usual suspects. There was the litany of examples of stupid-high prices. (Tube amplifiers at $34,000/pair! An electrostatic speaker system for $70,000!) There was the we're-dying-out-here quote from a member of the industry (…
My dogs were killing me. It was the end of the second day of the 1985 Summer Consumer Electronics Show, which I was visiting on behalf of English magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review. I had been dutifully tramping the capacious corridors of Chicago's McCormick Center and the rooms of the (now demolished) McCormick Inn, looking for signs of musical life amid the huge promotion for the 8mm tape format, which was being heavily touted at CES as the future of both video and audio (!) reproduction. Even trade-paper headlines shouting "Audio: Not Just Video Peripheral!" failed to lift my spirits…
Let's say you play a CD on a poor-quality CD transport and store the digital audio data in a massive computer memory. You then repeat the process, but this time play the CD into the memory from the finest CD transport extant (say, the Mark Levinson No.31). A week later you feed the two sets of data from the massive memory into a digital processor and listen to the music. Would the CD transports' sonic signatures be removed from the signal? Could you hear a difference between the transports a week later?
I believe that the two reproductions would sound identical. Because the…