Pioneer SP-BS22-LR Bookshelf Speaker Review

[arpinnurmela]

Again. Totally get it.

But for those who know how to solder and have $25 dollars you can try it yourself.

 

[arpinnurmela]

The wires inside the SP-BS22-LR are bargain basement trash.​

When I opened up the BS22 I was very impressed with the quality of the drivers and the crossover didn't look like total garbage either. The wires however, were total trash wires. Anemic 22ga for the tweeter and 18ga for the woofer.

Note that all of GR-Research upgrades always, always, include solid core wiring in addition to the crossover redo, and he usually recommends solid copper tube connectors. There's a reason folks... Solid core wiring, like he uses and like what Anti-Cables are using could be a step up from stranded wire. Sure. I actually don't know and I also don't care. Because I've gone one step further, I use solid core wiring that is air-gapped inside teflon. I know that I'm taking a hit regarding eventual oxidation of the copper over 10-20 years, but I figure that that's a good time frame for a speaker. Most people who do air-gapped teflon are doing silver. And I have my two reference systems using solid core silver. But silver is more costly than copper, which is why I started experimenting with the copper. And the only copper I could get was the 99.9% craft copper on eBay. So, I had what I thought was really high quality 8ga speaker cable on my reference system. 10ga copper smashed it. There wasn't even a comparison to be made. So that surprised me which is how I started experimenting with copper on my cheaper systems. Because, yeah, I'm not going to drop $400 of silver into a system that cost $300. Not going to happen.

So, that's why I figured to see what would happen if I opened up my Elac and Pioneer speakers and only replaced the wires with 16ga copper to the woofer and the tweeter. It's so cheap to do that I figured why not. And unfortunately for me, I personally heard a massive difference. I've always been against all mods in general and have never liked spending past $400 on cables of any kind. But since I can make a solid silver 20ga to pure solid silver Eichmann connector for a reasonable price plus some solder time, I discovered that amazing things are possible with wire.

And frankly, I can't see a good reason to do more than replacing the wires on either an Elac or Pioneer. The gains are so clear, transparent, and impactful that maybe I could spend $1-200 on replacing a crossover for a speaker that cost me $70. Or I can be done and very very happy with a minuscule investment of time and money. For the audiophools like myself, I wholeheartedly encourage you to try it.

 

[Lpd2]

These pioneers were my babies for quite awhile, for a small bedroom and 43inch tv theyre perfect. I used these with an onkyo a9010 and when streaming 3.5mm input back when iphones had a jack. Great sound; almost made me stop buying CD's. Ha! Never! The pioneers are no worries if you listen to music with acoustic bass like I do that four incher is no bad news, you'll hear a great balanced sound and I wan't to say "euphonic". I was happy to give to goodwill when it was finally time. Replaced with jbl 230 and still not really an upgrade more of a side-grade or rather size-grade. When I eventually start fooling around with 11.2 atmos these will be the go-to at least for starts.

 

[tmtomh]

These pioneers were my babies for quite awhile, for a small bedroom and 43inch tv theyre perfect. I used these with an onkyo a9010 and when streaming 3.5mm input back when iphones had a jack. Great sound; almost made me stop buying CD's. Ha! Never! The pioneers are no worries if you listen to music with acoustic bass like I do that four incher is no bad news, you'll hear a great balanced sound and I wan't to say "euphonic". I was happy to give to goodwill when it was finally time. Replaced with jbl 230 and still not really an upgrade more of a side-grade or rather size-grade. When I eventually start fooling around with 11.2 atmos these will be the go-to at least for starts.

I was fortunate to get a pair of these BS22-LR speakers for $60 on sale about 6 years ago and I used them just as you did: with an Onkyo A9010 integrated amp for sound from a medium-sized TV. My experience was very similar to yours: they were excellent for that purpose and had a shocking amount of bass given the size of the drivers and their price point.

I hasten to add that I am not making any sonic claims for these speakers that would contradict their measured performance. Their oft-noted mediocrity on the high end was a non-issue for me, as for casual TV listening I was most focused on the midrange (for dialogue) and the mid-bass (for some sense of heft and a feeling of well-balanced and non-"tinny" sound).

They're not currently in service, but I am keeping them because for $60 they are an insanely great deal and perfect for having around to press into service anywhere a secondary system might be needed - TV again, garage, giving to a kid or loved one for a first stereo, and so on.

 

[Dennis Murphy]

The wires inside the SP-BS22-LR are bargain basement trash.​

When I opened up the BS22 I was very impressed with the quality of the drivers and the crossover didn't look like total garbage either. The wires however, were total trash wires. Anemic 22ga for the tweeter and 18ga for the woofer.

Note that all of GR-Research upgrades always, always, include solid core wiring in addition to the crossover redo, and he usually recommends solid copper tube connectors. There's a reason folks... Solid core wiring, like he uses and like what Anti-Cables are using could be a step up from stranded wire. Sure. I actually don't know and I also don't care. Because I've gone one step further, I use solid core wiring that is air-gapped inside teflon. I know that I'm taking a hit regarding eventual oxidation of the copper over 10-20 years, but I figure that that's a good time frame for a speaker. Most people who do air-gapped teflon are doing silver. And I have my two reference systems using solid core silver. But silver is more costly than copper, which is why I started experimenting with the copper. And the only copper I could get was the 99.9% craft copper on eBay. So, I had what I thought was really high quality 8ga speaker cable on my reference system. 10ga copper smashed it. There wasn't even a comparison to be made. So that surprised me which is how I started experimenting with copper on my cheaper systems. Because, yeah, I'm not going to drop $400 of silver into a system that cost $300. Not going to happen.

So, that's why I figured to see what would happen if I opened up my Elac and Pioneer speakers and only replaced the wires with 16ga copper to the woofer and the tweeter. It's so cheap to do that I figured why not. And unfortunately for me, I personally heard a massive difference. I've always been against all mods in general and have never liked spending past $400 on cables of any kind. But since I can make a solid silver 20ga to pure solid silver Eichmann connector for a reasonable price plus some solder time, I discovered that amazing things are possible with wire.

And frankly, I can't see a good reason to do more than replacing the wires on either an Elac or Pioneer. The gains are so clear, transparent, and impactful that maybe I could spend $1-200 on replacing a crossover for a speaker that cost me $70. Or I can be done and very very happy with a minuscule investment of time and money. For the audiophools like myself, I wholeheartedly encourage you to try it.

I guess you're serious. I figured this was some kind of Halloween story, although it might be more appropriate on April Fool's. Just what do you think happens to those poor electrons as they travel 8" across the highly conductive 18 AWG wire to the woofer terminals? Or maybe 9.5" inches along the22 AWG wire to the tweeter terminals? What is the scientific basis for any of this?

 

[Bruce Morgen]

I guess you're serious. I figured this was some kind of Halloween story, although it might be more appropriate on April Fool's. Just what do you think happens to those poor electrons as they travel 8" across the highly conductive 18 AWG wire to the woofer terminals? Or maybe 9.5" inches along the22 AWG wire to the tweeter terminals? What is the scientific basis for any of this?

There is no "scientific basis," unless you buy into the common audiophile folklore about certain aspects of audio being readily audible to astute listeners -- but not measurable with SOTA test gear -- and call that "scientific."

My old Infinity subwoofer has 16AWG stranded wires terminated with FastOn ("quick disconnect") connectors between its plate amp and its ponderous driver. Those wires are so short that you can't reinstall the amp after service without removing and reinstalling the driver too. To avoid that inconvenience, I made little extension wires with some cheap FastOns from a Harbor Freight assortment and the only wire I had on hand that maintained the green/black color code. Sadly, that wire (harvested from a dead PeeCee PSU) was only "total trash" 20AWG. You can guess how much difference those cheap connectors and "total trash" wires made, right? Yup, none whatsoever!

 

[arpinnurmela]

I can attest that there is a big improvement in sound quality when the wires inside the Pioneer are replaced. There is an obvious improvement across the frequency spectrum in terms of timbre and tone. It’s moderately easy and inexpensive to do the wire replacement. And the results will be obvious rather than subtle. Especially do one speaker first and compare it to the speaker with the OEM wires. This mod is way cheaper than monkeying around with rebuilding the crossover and will probably be enough for most people.

The reason this happens is because most of the current flow happens on the surface of the wire because that is where the charges are most separate from each other (like charges repel). So for stranded wiring what happens is that electrons will move across the strands. And although the strands are very close to each other there remains a gap that the electrons must quantum tunnel across. This quantum tunneling causes phase shifts which smears the signal. I’ve personally run calculations on these effects in my physics grad school program. In my graduate EM course we had to calculate the distribution of current inside a wire. In my graduate QM course we had to calculate the quantum tunneling across the boundary between two pieces of metal. In both classes we had interesting discussions on these phenomena as the students (myself included) were surprised with the results.

Personally, I never gave it much thought over the years until I started experimenting with using solid wiring. I’ve never been a big believer in wires and when I worked as a hifi salesperson a decade ago, I would always steer my customers to the cheapest solutions, precisely because I wasn’t a believer. And I’ve sat through ridiculous wire demos of $40k wires and been largely unimpressed because I really struggled to hear any significant difference. But the thing about solid core wiring is that it is obvious, not subtle. So, I completely understand the skepticism as I lived in that world until this year. But once you hear the difference it’s so obvious that it’s hard to refute.

Recently, I made some interconnects and speaker wire for a person who had Mapleshade wires, which are somewhat expensive. I used only my entry level materials. My wires were still better than the Mapleshade. So now this guy I made the speaker wires for is trying to figure out what to do with his expensive wires. And for my interconnects I use pure solid silver from start to finish which is another big jump from even my entry level stuff. To date I’ve made wiring for about seven people, all of whom have unanimously said my wiring sounds better.

So, I only counter your skepticism in order to offer potential readers an alternative way, and a cheaper way, to upgrade their Pioneer speakers. Sure, go ahead and upgrade these bookshelves however you want. I’m just offering my experiences here as you are. If you have a Pioneer bookshelf speaker and want to upgrade it on the cheap, try what I’m saying and you’ll hear for yourself.

 

[maverickronin]

So, I only counter your skepticism in order to offer potential readers an alternative way, and a cheaper way, to upgrade their Pioneer speakers. Sure, go ahead and upgrade these bookshelves however you want. I’m just offering my experiences here as you are. If you have a Pioneer bookshelf speaker and want to upgrade it on the cheap, try what I’m saying and you’ll hear for yourself.

Advocating that kind of nonsense here is like walking into a pharmacy and offering homeopathy as an "alternative" to someone who came to pickup their antibiotics.

 

[arpinnurmela]

Advocating that kind of nonsense here is like walking into a pharmacy and offering homeopathy as an "alternative" to someone who came to pickup their antibiotics.

Indeed. I feel like I'm realizing this presently.

 

[Dogen]

Indeed. I feel like I'm realizing this presently.

First, welcome to ASR. I think you’ll find the general reaction to claims like this is, prove it...using a scientifically valid method (usually strict double blind testing) or measurable differences). I have no doubt you and your friends heard a difference, but all our brains are highly suggestible and easily fooled. I myself have heard differences in amplifiers when I’d forgotten to switch them out!

Besides, if what you say is true, you shouldn’t be posting on an audio site, you should be going for a Nobel Prize, because it would mean everything we have learned about electromagnetism, and have used to design precision projects like the Hubble Space Telescope and nanocircuitry, is wrong after all.

Maybe you could arrange a true double blind test, or document measurable, significant, audible differences in solid vs stranded cables? Audio is a hobby to most of us, and some of us enjoy things that don’t necessarily measure the best (vinyl, tape, tubes, etc.) but when someone claims something is true, contrary to all known science, we get curious to see the proof.

 

[restorer-john]

@arpinnurmela Next time you upgrade the speaker wire, just do one speaker. Then get someone to mix up the speakers so you have no idea which is which. See if the night and day difference is audible or just in your head.

 

[arpinnurmela]

First, welcome to ASR. I think you’ll find the general reaction to claims like this is, prove it...using a scientifically valid method (usually strict double blind testing) or measurable differences). I have no doubt you and your friends heard a difference, but all our brains are highly suggestible and easily fooled. I myself have heard differences in amplifiers when I’d forgotten to switch them out!

Besides, if what you say is true, you shouldn’t be posting on an audio site, you should be going for a Nobel Prize, because it would mean everything we have learned about electromagnetism, and have used to design precision projects like the Hubble Space Telescope and nanocircuitry, is wrong after all.

Maybe you could arrange a true double blind test, or document measurable, significant, audible differences in solid vs stranded cables? Audio is a hobby to most of us, and some of us enjoy things that don’t necessarily measure the best (vinyl, tape, tubes, etc.) but when someone claims something is true, contrary to all known science, we get curious to see the proof.

Yeah, I've opened a serious can of worms on a different thread on this forum. I'm very carefully trying to not be rude or cross some boundary of etiquette. Over on that thread I'm on a steep learning curve of how to best post to this forum.

 

[rdenney]

Yeah, I've opened a serious can of worms on a different thread on this forum. I'm very carefully trying to not be rude or cross some boundary of etiquette. Over on that thread I'm on a steep learning curve of how to best post to this forum.

It's not a question of politeness, and your posts have always seemed polite to me. It's a question of technical plausibility and validity. And of reason.

The issue here is that there is no reason why the wire you replaced wouldn't be perfectly suitable for the purpose, given the very short runs. 22-gauge wire is small, but its resistance is about 16 ohms per thousand feet. So, the resistance of the wire in the speaker cabinet might be 0.01 ohms--not enough to have any measurable effect on speaker performance. This really doesn't require much expertise.

So, if you claim that enlarging the wire has a noticeable effect, there has to be a reason beyond trash-talking Pioneer. Did you measure the resistance of the wire you removed? Did you perform REW frequency-response sweeps before and after changing the wire?

Thus, readers are left with the assumption that what you are hearing is dominated by what you expect to hear, not by any actual difference in the sound. That assumption is consistent with the engineering conclusion that a hundredth of an ohm isn't going to affect the speaker's output at all. If you insist the difference is real, then it should be detectable when controlled for those expectations, such as by the the method John said--only modify one speaker, have someone else switch them around so that you can't know which is which, and then show that you can reliably detect differences in them solely based on what you hear.

Now, if you measured the wire you removed and found that it was anomalous in some key way (like it's not made out of copper and has high resistance, or it was poorly soldered on one end creating a high-resistance connection, or it was pinched during assembly and all but one of the strands were cut) you would flip the assumption around to support the expectation that a difference might be heard, and the burden of showing that difference would be less.

You can't just make what the technically knowledgeable (and even expert) would consider unevidenced claims and expect them to avoid vigorous challenge. Doing so would be unreasonable, and this forum values reason above all other traits, sometimes (it must be said) including politeness.

(I own a pair of these speakers and am looking at them right now. Am I tempted to open them up? Not in the least.)

Rick "assuming in good faith" Denney

 

[Bruce Morgen]

I can attest that there is a big improvement in sound quality when the wires inside the Pioneer are replaced. There is an obvious improvement across the frequency spectrum in terms of timbre and tone. It’s moderately easy and inexpensive to do the wire replacement. And the results will be obvious rather than subtle. Especially do one speaker first and compare it to the speaker with the OEM wires. This mod is way cheaper than monkeying around with rebuilding the crossover and will probably be enough for most people.

The reason this happens is because most of the current flow happens on the surface of the wire because that is where the charges are most separate from each other (like charges repel). So for stranded wiring what happens is that electrons will move across the strands. And although the strands are very close to each other there remains a gap that the electrons must quantum tunnel across. This quantum tunneling causes phase shifts which smears the signal. I’ve personally run calculations on these effects in my physics grad school program. In my graduate EM course we had to calculate the distribution of current inside a wire. In my graduate QM course we had to calculate the quantum tunneling across the boundary between two pieces of metal. In both classes we had interesting discussions on these phenomena as the students (myself included) were surprised with the results.

Personally, I never gave it much thought over the years until I started experimenting with using solid wiring. I’ve never been a big believer in wires and when I worked as a hifi salesperson a decade ago, I would always steer my customers to the cheapest solutions, precisely because I wasn’t a believer. And I’ve sat through ridiculous wire demos of $40k wires and been largely unimpressed because I really struggled to hear any significant difference. But the thing about solid core wiring is that it is obvious, not subtle. So, I completely understand the skepticism as I lived in that world until this year. But once you hear the difference it’s so obvious that it’s hard to refute.

Recently, I made some interconnects and speaker wire for a person who had Mapleshade wires, which are somewhat expensive. I used only my entry level materials. My wires were still better than the Mapleshade. So now this guy I made the speaker wires for is trying to figure out what to do with his expensive wires. And for my interconnects I use pure solid silver from start to finish which is another big jump from even my entry level stuff. To date I’ve made wiring for about seven people, all of whom have unanimously said my wiring sounds better.

So, I only counter your skepticism in order to offer potential readers an alternative way, and a cheaper way, to upgrade their Pioneer speakers. Sure, go ahead and upgrade these bookshelves however you want. I’m just offering my experiences here as you are. If you have a Pioneer bookshelf speaker and want to upgrade it on the cheap, try what I’m saying and you’ll hear for yourself.

Do you happen to subscribe to the U-Toob channel called "gr-research" helmed by speaker designer Danny Richie? Just curious...

 

[Magnus0322]

I can attest that there is a big improvement in sound quality when the wires inside the Pioneer are replaced. There is an obvious improvement across the frequency spectrum in terms of timbre and tone. It’s moderately easy and inexpensive to do the wire replacement. And the results will be obvious rather than subtle. Especially do one speaker first and compare it to the speaker with the OEM wires. This mod is way cheaper than monkeying around with rebuilding the crossover and will probably be enough for most people.

The reason this happens is because most of the current flow happens on the surface of the wire because that is where the charges are most separate from each other (like charges repel). So for stranded wiring what happens is that electrons will move across the strands. And although the strands are very close to each other there remains a gap that the electrons must quantum tunnel across. This quantum tunneling causes phase shifts which smears the signal. I’ve personally run calculations on these effects in my physics grad school program. In my graduate EM course we had to calculate the distribution of current inside a wire. In my graduate QM course we had to calculate the quantum tunneling across the boundary between two pieces of metal. In both classes we had interesting discussions on these phenomena as the students (myself included) were surprised with the results.

Personally, I never gave it much thought over the years until I started experimenting with using solid wiring. I’ve never been a big believer in wires and when I worked as a hifi salesperson a decade ago, I would always steer my customers to the cheapest solutions, precisely because I wasn’t a believer. And I’ve sat through ridiculous wire demos of $40k wires and been largely unimpressed because I really struggled to hear any significant difference. But the thing about solid core wiring is that it is obvious, not subtle. So, I completely understand the skepticism as I lived in that world until this year. But once you hear the difference it’s so obvious that it’s hard to refute.

Recently, I made some interconnects and speaker wire for a person who had Mapleshade wires, which are somewhat expensive. I used only my entry level materials. My wires were still better than the Mapleshade. So now this guy I made the speaker wires for is trying to figure out what to do with his expensive wires. And for my interconnects I use pure solid silver from start to finish which is another big jump from even my entry level stuff. To date I’ve made wiring for about seven people, all of whom have unanimously said my wiring sounds better.

So, I only counter your skepticism in order to offer potential readers an alternative way, and a cheaper way, to upgrade their Pioneer speakers. Sure, go ahead and upgrade these bookshelves however you want. I’m just offering my experiences here as you are. If you have a Pioneer bookshelf speaker and want to upgrade it on the cheap, try what I’m saying and you’ll hear for yourself.

 

[arpinnurmela]

It's not a question of politeness, and your posts have always seemed polite to me. It's a question of technical plausibility and validity. And of reason.

The issue here is that there is no reason why the wire you replaced wouldn't be perfectly suitable for the purpose, given the very short runs. 22-gauge wire is small, but its resistance is about 16 ohms per thousand feet. So, the resistance of the wire in the speaker cabinet might be 0.01 ohms--not enough to have any measurable effect on speaker performance. This really doesn't require much expertise.

So, if you claim that enlarging the wire has a noticeable effect, there has to be a reason beyond trash-talking Pioneer. Did you measure the resistance of the wire you removed? Did you perform REW frequency-response sweeps before and after changing the wire?

Thus, readers are left with the assumption that what you are hearing is dominated by what you expect to hear, not by any actual difference in the sound. That assumption is consistent with the engineering conclusion that a hundredth of an ohm isn't going to affect the speaker's output at all. If you insist the difference is real, then it should be detectable when controlled for those expectations, such as by the the method John said--only modify one speaker, have someone else switch them around so that you can't know which is which, and then show that you can reliably detect differences in them solely based on what you hear.

Now, if you measured the wire you removed and found that it was anomalous in some key way (like it's not made out of copper and has high resistance, or it was poorly soldered on one end creating a high-resistance connection, or it was pinched during assembly and all but one of the strands were cut) you would flip the assumption around to support the expectation that a difference might be heard, and the burden of showing that difference would be less.

You can't just make what the technically knowledgeable (and even expert) would consider unevidenced claims and expect them to avoid vigorous challenge. Doing so would be unreasonable, and this forum values reason above all other traits, sometimes (it must be said) including politeness.

(I own a pair of these speakers and am looking at them right now. Am I tempted to open them up? Not in the least.)

Rick "assuming in good faith" Denney

Thanks Rick for the response. I’m kind of going at this argument from a different perspective and am already arguing this stuff in another thread so I encourage you to look at my argument in more detail over on the “solid core theory” thread as I want to try to keep this thread centered on upgrades to the Pioneer speaker.

Certainly I’m not claiming that the wire has high resistance. It has higher resistance than what I replaced it with but that wasn’t the point. I replaced it as a one man experiment to see what would happen. I felt the results were great and noteworthy, but I don’t have measurements, which I’ve realized is a big problem here so I table my claims and merely propose that it could be worth someone trying if they don’t want to rebuild the crossover. If it sounds too hard to do or too much for a cheap speaker or just plain dumb, that’s fine. I was just writing about one man’s subjective experience and that is the extent of it.

 

[arpinnurmela]

Do you happen to subscribe to the U-Toob channel called "gr-research" helmed by speaker designer Danny Richie? Just curious...

I do. I like his videos. And like that he does the frequency response and decay graphs. Good data. Better than what I brought to this discussion which was only subjective experience from me and the few people who also heard the difference.

 

[arpinnurmela]

I saw this video. It was good. You should note that they make a distinction between energy flow and current flow in the video. That is an important distinction.

 

[Bruce Morgen]

I do. I like his videos. And like that he does the frequency response and decay graphs. Good data. Better than what I brought to this discussion which was only subjective experience from me and the few people who also heard the difference.

Be careful. Once Danny exits his professional wheelhouse of speaker system design, he falls right down the audiophool snake oil rabbit hole -- e.g. he thinks the insulation material of the hook-up wire inside a speaker enclosure and the presence of ferromagnetic material in binding posts make an audible difference. I kid you not...

 

[arpinnurmela]

Be careful. Once Danny exits his professional wheelhouse of speaker system design, he falls right down the audiophool snake oil rabbit hole -- e.g. he thinks the insulation material of the hook-up wire inside a speaker enclosure and the presence of ferromagnetic material in binding posts make an audible difference. I kid you not...

Indeed. I have heard him make these claims numerous times. I personally don’t get excited about that stuff. In general I don’t like anything DIY or modding. Partially due to laziness and partially skepticism. The wire stuff is fairly easy to pull off so that’s why I have been messing around with it and the results have been subjectively great. On my Pioneers I kept all the crossovers as is all the cheap screws as is and added no foam or anything else aside from replacing the wires. And I feel super lazy even thinking about upgrading the crossover. I’m very happy with the sound I have at this point so no more work on my end.