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Affordable Accuracy Monitor Review

The Affordable Accuracy Mini Monitor (Pioneer Mod) is officially dead. Long live the Affordable Accuracy Plus Monitor. Details here, more measurements coming: philharmonicaudio.com
 
The Affordable Accuracy Mini Monitor (Pioneer Mod) is officially dead. Long live the Affordable Accuracy Plus Monitor. Details here, more measurements coming: philharmonicaudio.com

I’d rather have the Plus anyway. The Pioneer modded version was very good but the Plus is better across the board. Hope Amir gets one in to measure. I’m certain it will be the value leader.
 
Dang it. I told my wife I was done buying speakers. :p

Story of my life! I need to clean up my stockpile before bringing in anything new. I hate shipping and have been cautious about in person sales. There will be a pair of these new speakers in my home soon. I’m trying to fight the urge to buy the new BMR’s. If the curved cabinets were available in the US, I’m not sure I could resist.
 
Are you taking orders now? I sent an email to [email protected] a couple of days ago. My wife gave me permission (I know--but happy wife, happy life--our 48th anniversary is in June) to buy a pair for my 70th birthday. I can't wait! Thanks!
They're very much for sale. I think I replied to all of my emails. Could you please send it again? Thanks. And just to make sure there's no confusion, this is a kit, albeit a very simple one. I don't think Ikea sells anything this easy to assemble.
 
I’d rather have the Plus anyway. The Pioneer modded version was very good but the Plus is better across the board. Hope Amir gets one in to measure. I’m certain it will be the value leader.
It is great (I can’t fathom the profit margin on these, maybe enough that Dennis can buy himself a Big Mac), but that 83.5dB sensitivity is unfortunate. The tweeter is 90dB sensitive, so it’s the woofer that’s the issue; the driver is 86dB, so 83.5dB is realistic for BSC, and it‘s rated at 50W RMS & 100W max.

For modern music, I don’t foresee an issue, but for home theater purposes I would be hesitant.
 
It is great (I can’t fathom the profit margin on these, maybe enough that Dennis can buy himself a Big Mac), but that 83.5dB sensitivity is unfortunate. The tweeter is 90dB sensitive, so it’s the woofer that’s the issue; the driver is 86dB, so 83.5dB is realistic for BSC, and it‘s rated at 50W RMS & 100W max.

For modern music, I don’t foresee an issue, but for home theater purposes I would be hesitant.
Unfortunate, but perfectly compliant with the laws of nature. The woofes really do make it down into the 30's (albeit with some port noise at the very low end), so that means high mass and low sensitivity. But are watts really that expensive? Any decent and fairly inexpensive receiver can make music out of these things.
 
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Would the new AA+ be a good candidate for HT as 3 across for the LCR?
 
Thanks. I don’t have external amplification, so sensitivity might be an issue with just my AVR.
 
Thanks. I don’t have external amplification, so sensitivity might be an issue with just my AVR.
It depends on the AVR, but if it can put out 100 real watts per channel at low distortion in the bass, you should be fine unless you're going for reference levels, in which case you would want a whole different kind of speaker.
 
It depends on the AVR, but if it can put out 100 real watts per channel at low distortion in the bass, you should be fine unless you're going for reference levels, in which case you would want a whole different kind of speaker.
Would use of a subwoofer for HT also boost output?
 
I think people over estimate how loud they need or want their sound to be. I am always a lot lower than I think, which is usually IIRC the last time I checked in the 70s.
 
Would use of a subwoofer for HT also boost output?
It will increase power handling and reduce the load on the amplifier in the bass range, but it won't affect sensitivity per se. But with a sub and any decent receiver, you should be able to damage your hearing.
 
It will increase power handling and reduce the load on the amplifier in the bass range, but it won't affect sensitivity per se. But with a sub and any decent receiver, you should be able to damage your hearing.
My receiver (Onkyo) is rated at 120 wpc stereo at 6ohms. I plugged in the values for these speakers in stereo and my listening area into this calculator: Peak SPL Calculator (homestead.com) and the result was a max of 97.7 db at the listening position. I rarely listen as high as 80 db, so I should have plenty of power and headroom. I'm really looking forward to hearing the AA+'s.
 
They're very much for sale. I think I replied to all of my emails. Could you please send it again? Thanks. And just to make sure there's no confusion, this is a kit, albeit a very simple one. I don't think Ikea sells anything this easy to assemble.

Hi Dennis, are these AA+ kits still available? I sent you an email but I haven't heard back.
 
I've developed separate mods for the towers and the center channel, all using the same tweeter. Of the three AJ Pioneer designs, the towers are the most problematic. I've lost track of how many of those I've modded and sold, but the stock versions consistently measured worse than the center or monitor and sounded the murkiest. Although I have documented the mod for the 52 in fairly great detail, it's a bear to implement. I don't really recommend that anyone take it on unless they're really really bored and have an electronics background.

Took me a while to find this particular post, but I needed the emphasis because I ended up doing this with @Dennis Murphy 's instruction.

It started with the C22 for which I had Dennis build me the crossover as I'm not electrically inclined and hadn't soldered since high school (far too many years ago). For that one I could have just twist, crimped, and taped, but I did get a cheap soldering kit because why not. I didn't have to give the C22 a +3dB bump anymore and voices sounded cleaner and a bit fuller. Now I have a soldering kit too.

The disparity in tweeter quality gnawed on me while watching things, however. So I asked Dennis about the FS52 mod and he sent me the schematics. I decided not to do it at first because it did seem like a lot of work I wasn't ready for. I also didn't want to bother him about building more for me. That gnawing though... Ok let's just order the parts ... and wait a month and a half because of Parts Express back orders. I spent about two hours carefully following the instructions to build both crossover boards. For someone who has done this before it would definitely take less time. For the C22 notching the speaker frame to fit the tweeter's opposed terminals without a saw I used a drill to make concentric holes. For the FS52 I bought I dremel and made that bit much easier. Cutting up the wires in the speaker and splicing them around the new crossover took me a good long while because even with two sets of instructions I didn't want to screw it up. The final bit of securing the crossover board I went with 15lb Velcro strips instead of screwing into the cabinet. I did one tower first, partially closed up, tested it, finished it off. Second one went a lot quicker and tempting fate I didn't bother to test before securing and fully closing it - it went just fine. All in all about 5 hours for a novice.

PXL_20210321_174751861.jpgPXL_20210321_233014076.NIGHT.jpg

Gotta say just wow. I set my AVR to direct mode and just listened to music to test and ended up doing that for two hours before my SO said it's 9 on Sunday, let the neighbors have some quiet. Absolutely blown away by the new life these speakers have taken on. My SO even joked that we could get rid of our PB-12 NSD. At least I think it was a joke, she does want that space back... Speakers sounded much clearer, had a stronger center image but also just sounded bigger too. I'll need to re-run Audyssey soon to get their impression for HT use. I'm sure I'll be similarly impressed.

Now I excitedly await Mr. Murphy's BR-1 kit for my desk...
 
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