Are you trolling, or just not reading carefully? Who would ever compare Pioneer speakers with TAD speakers? Gene said Andrew Jones worked for TAD as an indication that Andrew knows quality. If you infer from that that Gene is suggesting that Pioneer and TAD are interchangeable, you've misunderstood. Not even the most loosely packed straw man would claim that Pioneer's budget speakers would have comparable reproduction with TAD's luxury offerings.
Now, pitting the budget bookshelf Pioneer BS22-LR against the similarly priced JBL ES20 would be a more believable comparison, and much more relevant to someone without a lot of money looking for a starter system. And it is in such a context where Pioneer has well-deservedly earned its accolades.
I hope this clears things up for you.
What I am inferring is there is not enough cash being spent (even if made in China) to produce those speakers to make them a good choice. $126/ea? So saying AJ also designs Tad means nothing to the quality of these Pioneer speakers.
From Dennis
"Well, I'm not sure it's all that minor--new tweeter, new crossover, 4 hours of work."
Those upgraded parts/ extra work could have been done at the factory. And how many more $ would that require? Not much.
$1 in 1973 = $5.52 today
The first pair of JBLs I bought in '73 were $275/ea. And they were
not top-o-line.
So for the dollar of today, that is over $1500. But even if you cut that in half, $137 then/$750 now...still way above $126.
Do you see the disparity?
Are you telling me we need $126 speakers cause that is all some minimum wage earner in the US can spend? Minimum wages back then were <$2, and a decent speaker was >$100.