I finally got around to unboxing the pioneers..
and doing a quick comparo to a couple of other smallish stand-mount speakers I have around.
The plan was to set set them up as B speakers on my 3313, test-tone them to 80db and, note the receiver volume levels, and give them a listen.
That was until I noticed all the static out of my left B (surround back left) channel! I have never used it before and the receiver must have come that way
So, now I'm pissed, but not beaten, just use the front left and right and call it good. I didn't bother to level match at this point other than using the spl meter on the same passage in the source material for each speaker.
My basement theater/ bar area is about 3200 cubes and likely not suited to the 4" mids in the pioneers and empteks. This was borne out in the listening tests between the two.
I found that bumping up the sub to 150hz helped the overall sound but they still sounded small... And surprisingly similar. Especially the mids. The Emps tweeter sounded a little smoother but not by much. Overall, I think they're both great little speakers for a smaller rooms.
I use my Emps in my office and these pioneers are going to the 14 yr old kid next door for watching our dogs while we were on vacation
yah, I'm the neighborhood audio pusher
. We're going away again in April and I'm getting him a griffin20 for that trip so he can stream from his ps3 to his pioneers and drive his folks crazy! Need to find him a sub after that
I forgot to mention the zaphs- these are my fronts and center (5.3c)
and when I plugged these guys in, a whole different enchilada emerged.. Much better suited to my theater area and not surprising at all. Bigger mid driver, box etc. Much more fleshed out mids but the tweeter is not quite as nice as the Emp. Not as airy, but a wider soundstage.
Next time I will grab the Polk rt25i's from the garage and see how they stack up against the zaphs. The Polk's image like crazy when cranked in the garage but not so much at lower levels like the 5.2's do.
Cheers, Mac
ps I just printed out my return authorization for the denon
hope it doesn't take too long to get it back. Glad I kept my old denon as a back-up!
