| Pioneer Premier - Audio System
Pioneer is one of the true patriarchs of the hi-fi industry. Its humble beginnings go back to 1938 during WWII in Tokyo, when Pioneer was a radio repair service. The original owners survived the firestorms unleashed upon Tokyo during that war to form Pioneer Electronic Corp., a successful company that went public in 1961. Shortly after this, in 1962, Pioneer introduced its first home audio component stereo system. In 1966, the company moved part of its operation to America and formed Pioneer Electronics USA and began importing Pioneer home stereo products. A few years later, in 1972, the company realized the importance of quality car audio and formed a new car audio division, Pioneer of America. This certainly gives Pioneer bragging rights as one of the leaders in the early development of hi-fi car audio, an honor that is shared with other companies like International Jensen and Kenwood. (Check out their Web site at www.pioneerelectronics.com.)
The subject for this month's review is Pioneer's latest entry to the world of high-performance subwoofers, the Premier TS-W2000SPL 12-in subwoofer. Made in Pioneer's Mexico plant (an interesting diversity in a market where the majority of car subs are nowadays produced in China), the TS-W2000SPL is a new frame up design. The frame is a very smartly configured cast aluminum type that has four large spokes supporting the mounting surfaces and is finished in a flat black "crackle" paint. Unlike the majority of subwoofer frames, the TS-W2000SPL frame actually contains the magnet system rather than having it attached to the rear. This means that in assembly, the motor drops in from the front of the frame and is then bolted to the back of the frame by four large bolts. Although this is not a new idea, it works well and gives any woofer a very stable platform for the motor, a huge heatsink to wick heat away from the motor system and a really great cosmetic appearance. Finishing off this well-designed frame is an injection-molded rubber gasket that fits over the outside edge of the frame and provides both a rear mounting gasket and front trim gasket.
Like most high-powered subs, the TS-W2000SPL frame allows for substantial rear cone travel and has 45mm (1.8 in) of distance from the spider mounting shelf to the front plate. This area is also completely vented and covered by a perforated screen that allows air to flow over the front-traveling, exposed voice coil and the front plate surface for enhanced cooling.
The motor assembly consists of a single piece T-yoke with a 1.25-in diameter pole vent. To increase magnetic fringe field linearity and forward travel stability, Pioneer engineers extended the pole piece 10mm above the top plate. Top plate construction is a bit unusual in that it has what looks like a "bump out" that you normally see on rear plates. This means that the majority of the plate is probably about 8-10mm thick but the bump area that forms the gap is 20mm thick, which is what Pioneer calls an Expanded Gap. This is similar to a method used in the Fujitsu Ten Eclipse subwoofers and allows for a deeper magnetic field to drive the voice coil, but less metal for the magnet system to "drive," and in that respect is more efficient. Incidentally, Pioneer uses its own proprietary software in developing the electrical and mechanical systems for woofer products such as this.
The business end of this high-powered sub, namely the cone assembly, consists of a proprietary cone compound that is comprised of interlaced carbon fiber reinforcing an injection-molded polypropylene cone. The gloss black cone is about 7.5 inches in diameter, which is small for a 12-in woofer but about average for this type of wide surround, long excursion format. Like with many aluminum cone woofers, Pioneer has turned down the outside edge of this injection molded cone to add rigidity. That, plus the 5.5-in diameter, carbon-fiber composite paper dustcap, makes this cone about as stiff as anything I have seen in a high-powered sub.
Suspending this unique cone and dustcap combination is a 1.5x0.75-in proprietary three-layer fiber woven radial surround. This is made up of two layers of foam with a layer of fiber mesh sandwiched between the heat-formed foam layers. The remaining compliance is provided by the 8-in diameter, flat linear cloth spider made of Conex.
Driving this rather sophisticated cone assembly is a 3-in diameter, four-layer dual voice coil with round copper wire wound on a glass-imide voice coil former. Thick braided tinsel wire connects the voice coil to a pair of color-coded chrome binding posts. The tinsel wire is not woven into the spider as is currently popular with a number of manufacturers. Instead, Pioneer has taken a proven and more conventional approach and has glued foam squares to the back surface of the cone to prevent the wires from making noise when they bounce into the back of the cone on long excursions.
In the LabT/S parameters for the Pioneer Premier TS-W2000SPL were measured using the LinearX LMS (with the new Windows LMS4 software) analyzer, LEAP 4.0 CAD software, and the LinearX VIBox. Tests included both free-air and test box (delta compliance) impedance sweeps done using the current source (admittance) method. This means the woofer was connected directly to an amplifier (not through a 600-1000-ohm resistor) and the voltage and current measured separately at a nominal 1V level, with the two curves divided to produce an impedance curve. This data was imported into the LEAP software, the curve-fitting parameter calculation routine used to produce the resulting parameters (the computer box simulations are provided in the Data Chart). As a side note, this will be the last review done using LEAP 4.0. Future reviews will use the recently released LEAP 5.0 for Windows. This software is light years ahead of anything previously used to simulate loudspeakers and provides substantially improved accuracy at very high voltage levels. Expect even more accurate information about high SPL performance.
The parameters shown in the Data Chart were used to produce computer simulations of the factory-recommended box volumes, a sealed box (1.5 cu ft) and a vented box (1.75 cu ft) tuned to 43Hz with a 4-in diameter port. Performance in the 1.5-cubic-foot sealed box yielded a low-frequency roll-off of 47.2Hz with a rather low box Qtc of 0.43. While this is very underdamped compared to most woofers I have examined, keep in mind that as soon as the voice coil starts heating up, this "Q" number gets larger are larger. It should translate to very accurate bass that still sounds good at very high volume levels.
Increasing the voltage input of the computer simulation to 53V, increases the excursion to its maximum linear level (about 25.2mm) and results in an undistorted output of an impressive 115.75dB. The vented box simulation had a lower 39.7Hz roll-off and a max linear SPL of 122dB (this SPL number is probably somewhat exaggerated by LEAP 4's inability to accurately simulate very high voltage levels, which as I said will be corrected by using the new LinearX LEAP 5 Windows version in the future). Also, remember that these figures are based on sine wave analysis and the performance with program material will probably be at least 2-3dB greater before noticeable distortion. However, as Pioneer indicates in its TS-W2000 manual, "We want you listening for a lifetime" (hey, deaf people don't buy car subs) and that you need to avoid prolonged exposure to excessive SPL above 100dB, which this woofer is very capable of producing given sufficient amplifier power.
With an MSRP of only $250, my judgment is that this is a lot of woofer for the money, combining excellent build quality and outstanding thermal cooling features. This is a very professionally designed subwoofer and should provide excellent performance, but the bottom line is how it sounds subjectively. So how is it?
Listening I'm on my way to lunch, and I get a phone call from Car Audio and Electronics' Technical Editor, Casey Thorson. He was curious if I would be interested in doing some listening evaluations for the magazine. This is something I've dreamed about, that is, listening to product and getting paid for it, so needless to say I was way stoked. I told him I would be anxiously awaiting the first speaker's arrival. I was pretty excited to do a review of the Pioneer Premier TS-W2000SPL as I had just seen it at the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Back at the shop, I cracked open the packaging. Peeling through the protection, I found the warranty card, the specifications sheet, and the mounting hardware that Pioneer sends with the woofer. Included in this is a mounting template, which makes cutting holes less of a guessing game. You're more likely to wind up with the perfect hole in your enclosure, ensuring a good, tight fit.
The one-piece, die-cast aluminum basket has a brawny industrial design, with its huge spokes that hold the top and bottom of the double stacked motor structure together. The engineers at Pioneer also used large silver binding terminals for the speaker cable connection points. This allows for some real heavy-gauge speaker cable to be used, assuring that the big power from that thunderous amp you will be using flows to this sub. On the backside of the cone, just above the speaker connection points, a small piece of foam is adhered to make certain that the tinsel leads do not make a rattling noise on the chance that you are really driving the woofer to its limits-a problem often related to high excursion drivers. I really enjoyed how the mounting gasket wrapped all the way around the basket edge. This thick rubber lines the screws up perfectly to the holes in the basket, folding around the edge and snaking back under, acting as a mounting gasket. At $250, this thing has all the right parts in all the right places-bravo Pioneer!
After giving the TS-W2000SPL a good once over, I dialed Pioneer's tech department to see if it could recommend an enclosure for my specific vehicle. The tech team at Pioneer is obviously very busy so I called a local authorized Pioneer dealer (CarTrends in Tulsa, Okla.) and asked about the type of woofer enclosure it normally builds for this speaker. Turns out it's a vented enclosure of about 1.75 cu ft with a vent that is 4 inches in diameter and 6.5 inches in length. These recommendations were consistent with the volumes that Pioneer prints in the spec sheet for the TS-W2000SPL, so I went with it.
Now knowing the particulars for the enclosure I needed to build, the first thing I had to do was figure out what shape to build the box. I took some basic measurements of my truck, a crew cab 2000 Ford F350 turbo diesel dually. I figured I would build a basic box that could fit anywhere under the rear seat, allowing me to move the box around to find a location that would work the best.
I started by building the enclosure from 3/4 in MDF and a piece of 4-in PVC pipe, cut to length, to use as a port. Going off years of experience, I designed the box to fire the woofer downward; this will load against the floor of the truck, generally yielding greater output. The Pioneer woofer comes in a dual 4-ohm voice coil configuration and is rated at 2000 watts max power, so I wanted to make sure to push it to its maximum potential. To make good on the power I used a pair of Kicker KX 1200.1 amplifiers; one per voice coil. These amps will easily generate over 1000 watts of power to each voice coil, cleanly. This is quite a bit of power (especially for one sub) and is sure to overpower the rest of my system, but I can easily adjust the levels later. I made good use of the crossovers in the amplifiers, setting them at 100Hz (low-pass) to start. The remainder of my system consists of JBL C504GTI 5-1/4-in speakers powered by a four-channel amplifier delivering 150 watts to each speaker. It also uses a corresponding high-pass crossover set at 100Hz. My head unit is a Pioneer DEH-P9400MP with built-in equalization, but kept on bypass for the test.
I started my listening test with Pat Coil's "A Higher Road." This is a great soundtrack, so much so that it has been used on IASCA judging discs in years past. About 1 minute 45 seconds into this track, the bass guitar comes in real smooth. The TS-W2000SPL responded to this input with decent accuracy. Further along in the track you come upon a drum solo. The quick reflexes and subtle tones played by the drummer often blend together with too many woofers, especially if you don't have enough power to push it, but the Pioneer woofer did a very nice job. At higher levels, I heard some "huffing" (port noise) coming from the enclosure. To eliminate this problem for the remainder of the evaluation, I lined the enclosure with Miraflex, a synthetic insulation that you can find at your local hardware store.
Next I auditioned "Hang On To The Goodtimes" by Little Feat. I chose this track mainly to listen to the tonal balance of the kick-drum. I noticed that the upper bass tones really pulled my attention to the back seat where the sub enclosure was mounted. If you recall, I originally set the crossover point for the sub amps at 100Hz, which proved to be too high for our application. By simply re-adjusting the low-pass crossover point on the sub amps to about 70Hz and the high-pass amplifier (midrange) to 70Hz, the transition from mid-bass to sub-bass was less apparent, thus bass was less localized to the rear. Now I was back on track. I took another listen and found that the woofer sounded very realistic, with the tones of the beater hitting the kick drum accentuated (as it should be), as was the wallow of the drum as it faded out. Very nice.
Then it was on to "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman. Her music is full of energy across the spectrum, so you can expect a good workout from any speakers reproducing her music; from your subs all the way up to you tweeters. Throughout the track I experienced a reoccurring bass note (approximately 45Hz) jumping out at me, almost out of control. It was definitely more notable than the other bass frequencies on this track. My guess is that this was an effect of the enclosure being ported and tuned to 45Hz, resulting in plenty of additional output in that area.
This past January, while I was in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), I had the opportunity to see the Blue Man Group live. The group is awesome-so much so that I bought one of their CDs. Seeing and listening to the performance live really gave me a good reference point. I slid the CD into the player of my F350 and auditioned virtually all of the tracks. I found myself constantly going back to the composition "Drumbone." There are some long, sustained bass notes from about 40Hz up on up to the 80Hz range. I didn't quite get a visual of the Blue Men banging on their trademark plastic tubes, but the Pioneer's reproduction was good nonetheless.
One of today's biggest hip-hop artists, Eminem, was next on the list. I actually stumbled across one of his songs on the radio and thought it would be a good track to listen to for the review, so I went to the local record store and bought the CD. I listened to a few minutes of each track and noticed the large amounts of mechanical bass on this album. This enticed me to slowly crank the volume up louder and louder. Needless to say, by the time I had maxed it out, the bass was bumpin' in my truck! At this crazy-loud volume, I heard a small amount of air huffing from the port, but for the amount of bass I was getting it really didn't matter. Yeah, this is good!
The Pioneer Premier TS-W2000SPL definitely performs as strongly as it looks. It handles power gracefully with minimum stress. While not designed as an SQ woofer, it sounds very good, especially for its $250 retail price. I have to admit, I enjoyed this woofer so much that I'm on my way back to my truck with my Eminem CD in hand for another pound session. See ya!