Pioneer SP-BS22-LR Bookshelf Speaker Review

[Dennis Murphy]

I feel kind of lucky not to have been one of his students. There has to be a better way to explain it than that. But then I don't get Special Relativity either.

 

[GrayA]

Just bought a used pair of these and a Fosi Audio TB10D for my desktop PC and WOW! I'm sitting 2.5 feet away from them and increased the treble and bass and they sound incredible! The bass is full, punchy, and satisfying. I may add a sub so I can move bass closer to flat.

 

[GrayA]

I saw many posters didn't like these speakers and found them dull or lifeless. I didn't love them until I made the below changes on my amp. They opened up and the sound became full!

 

[Jp_nh]

It's funny Amir, I was hoping you'd get a pair of these horrors to test. The 22s were upgraded, but they needed to be. The 21s were absolutely atrocious.

I own (sent to my dad's) a pair of the first generation ones (the SP-B21 LR) and a pair of the larger floor standing version, the SP-B21 FS. I bought them just for fun, expecting something partially decent. They are without a doubt the worst sounding small bookshelf speakers I've ever heard or owned. The floorstanders are equally as hideous. Not my imagination either, compared them to numerous other budget and mid-priced similar speakers, side by side, and other people/friends thought the same. Many, many others feel exactly the same way.

They took on undeserved life of their own via the internet and group-think hype.

My quote to my father when I took them to his place to see if he could find a use for them (I suggested a stand for real speakers) was "they have no redeeming sonic qualities whatsoever". He thinks they are OK for listening to the cricket on AM. I told him they are his to do with what he wants, up to and including putting them outside with "free" taped to them. Trouble is, some poor young hipster might think they represent what HiFi actually sounds like, and that in itself would be a tragedy of epic proportions.

If you weren't so far away, I'd happily give them to you to test and compare to your 22s and then leave out on the footpath (sidewalk) for recycling when done. I'm happy to go grab them and do a photographic tear-down to compare the 1st vs 2nd generation if you like.

I do agree, the cabinet is a stand-out in finishing for the money and that's the only reason I didn't throw them out altogether.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one! I was in a Best Buy one evening, they had been out a couple of months, and I recognized them due to the hype. Figured they were pretty cheap, so why not give they a try, out of curiosity.

I decided to hook them up to a small amplifier in my office, and for a week I listened to them and hoped they would get better, which they never did. One week was plenty for me. I hooked back up the ADS L470/2s, and put the Pioneers on the shelf where they collected dust for a couple of years, until I gave them away. Horrible speakers!

As a side note I'm glad I found this site. I used to follow a lot threads on Audiophoolery over at eevblog. Glad to see people are actually applying some data points to equipment reviews, based on actual measurements, as opposed to feelies. Good stuff!

 

[restorer-john]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one! I was in a Best Buy one evening, they had been out a couple of months, and I recognized them due to the hype. Figured they were pretty cheap, so why not give they a try, out of curiosity.

I decided to hook them up to a small amplifier in my office, and for a week I listened to them and hoped they would get better, which they never did. One week was plenty for me. I hooked back up the ADS L470/2s, and put the Pioneers on the shelf where they collected dust for a couple of years, until I gave them away. Horrible speakers!

As a side note I'm glad I found this site. I used to follow a lot threads on Audiophoolery over at eevblog. Glad to see people are actually applying some data points to equipment reviews, based on actual measurements, as opposed to feelies. Good stuff!

Welcome to ASR.

Love the "I listened to them and hoped they would get better, which they never did..". Made me laugh.

 

[Jp_nh]

Welcome to ASR.

Love the "I listened to them and hoped they would get better, which they never did..". Made me laugh.

Thanks for the welcome! That week was quite disappointing.

 

[GrayA]

I'm glad I wasn't the only one! I was in a Best Buy one evening, they had been out a couple of months, and I recognized them due to the hype. Figured they were pretty cheap, so why not give they a try, out of curiosity.

I decided to hook them up to a small amplifier in my office, and for a week I listened to them and hoped they would get better, which they never did. One week was plenty for me. I hooked back up the ADS L470/2s, and put the Pioneers on the shelf where they collected dust for a couple of years, until I gave them away. Horrible speakers!

As a side note I'm glad I found this site. I used to follow a lot threads on Audiophoolery over at eevblog. Glad to see people are actually applying some data points to equipment reviews, based on actual measurements, as opposed to feelies. Good stuff!

You're referring to the BS21, not the BS22, correct?

 

[Jp_nh]

You're referring to the BS21, not the BS22, correct?

Right the first version.

 

[pavuol]

Does anyone know, at what exact market regions were these sold?

Bing replied:
"According to my web search, the Pioneer SP-BS22-LR is a budget bookshelf speaker that was designed by Andrew Jones, a renowned speaker engineer. The speaker was introduced in 2012 and received positive reviews from various sources 1 2 3 4. The speaker was sold in different markets, such as the US, Australia, and Japan. However, I could not find any specific information about the availability or pricing of the speaker in other regions. You may want to contact the manufacturer or a local dealer for more details. I hope this answers your question.
(I have bought them at german secondhand market, that's why I'm curious if they were oficially sold in Europe, seems not.. )

Also, AI have still some way to go, placing the ASR review on second place!! ..not to mention the 4th link

 

[JohnBooty]

I'd like to point out that these speakers are very physically durable. Because of dogs and children and unavoidable placement issues, my right SP-BS22-LR has been knocked onto the floor umpteen times.

While it's a little rough looking at this point, seems to still be functioning at 100%.

So if you're buying a pair on the used market, perhaps this anecdotal experience suggests you can buy with confidence even if it's a little rough looking.

 

[jooc]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Pioneer SP-BS22-LR desktop/bookshelf budget speakers. I purchased them recently from Amazon for US $118 including Prime shipping. But I hear they go on sale for much less money.

The build quality is incredible given the very low price:

View attachment 48945​

The enclosure is rather tall but not very heavy. I was pleasantly surprised by the nice, high quality binding posts in the back:

View attachment 48946​

The curved cabinet is an excellent touch and one that is expected on high-end speakers. There is no sloppy glue and such as I have seen on some drivers on budget speakers.

Measurements are performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics) to subtract room reflections. It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.

Spinorama Audio Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker can be used. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:

View attachment 48948

We like to see flat on-axis response as indicated by my arrow in red. Below about 1 kHz we are surprisingly close to that. The crossover frequency is at 3 kHz and we can see peaking of the response before it, and droop after it.

Early reflections though are smooth (in dashed blue) so that is good.

Zooming into "directivity index" tells us how close the direct sound of the speaker is relative to what hits all the other surfaces and then arrives at our ear:

View attachment 48949

We see some deviations above 2 kHz but not bad for a budget speaker.

If you were to put these in a room (as opposed to desktop), this is the predicted frequency response/tonality of the speaker where we mix the direct sound with reflections:

View attachment 48950

Deviations are small meaning this is more of a neutral speaker.

Basic Speaker Measurements
Here is the impedance (and phase) of the speaker relative to frequency:
View attachment 48951

Anytime there is a kink/little wiggle in the response, it indicates a resonance. We have at least a couple of these, one around 280 Hz and another at 1.6 kHz. The former is not showing up in the frequency response measurement so not material. There are some peaks around 1 kHz in the frequency response which means they are more material than what we are seeing here.

Here are distortion measurements which are supposed to be done in anechoic chamber but were not (so ignore data below 200 Hz or so):

View attachment 48952


View attachment 48953

Advanced Speaker Measurements
View attachment 48954

Notice that the early reflections are smoother than on-axis. Translation: don't follow the mob on the Internet and put absorbers everywhere.
View attachment 48956

I reduced the number of graphs here to better highlight the ones that are likely to be at play in your listening room:
View attachment 48955

On the left I have highlighted 20 and 30 degrees which would show the response if you did NOT toe in the speaker to point at your ear.
View attachment 48958

View attachment 48957

Eye-candy Speaker Measurements
Here is the soundfield from the speaker at crossover frequency of 3000 Hz:

View attachment 48959

If you had an ideal, full-bandwidth driver, you would get one balloon pointing at the listener. But due to interference between the tweeter and woofer, you have three speakers playing at once! One at your ear and then one point up and another pointing down.

Full spin data is enclosed.

Informal Listening Tests
My first impression was positive, listening to what was mostly a balanced response. In a few minutes though, I found the speaker bright a bit due to lack of deep bass. I toed the speaker away from my ears and that made a drastic difference, balancing the tonality considerably. Compared to my JBL LSR305P Mark II, the JBL had much better bass but otherwise had similar tonality which is to say the Pioneer was doing well. Let me backtrack that a bit: there is a bit too much mid-range in the pioneer.

On loudness test, deep lows play a bit but then the speaker falls apart drastically, getting super distorted. Techno music with higher frequency bass was handled much better. If you have an option of cutting out the very lows in your playback software, I would do that.

Conclusions
I remember meeting Andrew Jones at CES years ago when he had first brought out these (or was it the older generation) ones. I asked him what made them sound good and he said: "people making budget speakers put in 10 cent parts. I spend $1 and that makes a big difference!" Naturally there is more there in the form of a skilled designer than typical budget speaker.

Overall, the mission is accomplished in designing a speaker that is not offensive despite its low cost. It looks good and seems to perform well.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

It is half hour before midnight as I am typing this review. For some odd reasons, the TV networks play all these food commercials making me hungry for some lobster! Please donate a few dollars so I can get some tomorrow using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

I love these speakers.

I own two pair of these, the first used to be my home office pair for years with a Sony receiver. Now that pair is delivering a teen's TV audio with an smsl amp and the other pair I found on craigslist is attached to little dac/amp giving PC desktop streaming audio to my other kid.

In both cases it's better hi-fi level audio than I remember having in my entire house growing up from our anemic 'stereo record players' with large, bad speakers. These kids don't know how good they have it with these Andrew Jones wonders.

 

[tw 2022]

I love these speakers.

I own two pair of these, the first used to be my home office pair for years with a Sony receiver. Now that pair is delivering a teen's TV audio with an smsl amp and the other pair I found on craigslist is attached to little dac/amp giving PC desktop streaming audio to my other kid.

In both cases it's better hi-fi level audio than I remember having in my entire house growing up from our anemic 'stereo record players' with large, bad speakers. These kids don't know how good they have it with these Andrew Jones wonders.

are you thinking of doing the Dennis Murphy mod by chance? i've heard it's much better ..

 

[jooc]

... Considered as value for the money, they’re amazing. I would be interested in hearing what others consider better value speakers at this price point.
Thanks for the review, Amir!

Good question, I do think the Edifier 1280dbs powered speakers in the same $120 price range are just as good for near-field listening. I have some Polk T10s or T15s or something like that that cost around $120 but are too bad to even use for anything beyond gaming, so all $100 speakers are not remotely the same

 

[jooc]

are you thinking of doing the Dennis Murphy mod by chance? i've heard it's much better ..

Maybe, I hadn't heard about it until now. Frankly these sound just fine the way they are, in the TV application there's a SW involved, and in the PC streaming it just already sounds night and day better than the Audioengine A2 PC speakers they replaced.