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Pioneer SP-C22 Review (Center Speaker)

Rate this speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 8 6.1%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 41 31.3%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 71 54.2%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 11 8.4%

  • Total voters
    131

Beershaun

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Fair point. But am genuinely curious what you would suggest instead, at, say, up to double the price?
I would go without one until I could get one that has solid directivity. Just get a left and right pair of speakers. My living room TV is hooked up to an AVR with just a left and right tower speaker. It sounds good and nothing is missing as the AVR send everything to those two speakers.
 

Newman

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D’Appolito is a layout type, not a crossover type. It just needs a steep crossover, that’s all.
Which the C22 lacks, hence not d’Appolito. :)
 

restorer-john

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Fair point. But am genuinely curious what you would suggest instead, at, say, up to double the price?

The number of small, high quality 2 ways you could find on the 2nd hand market for US$300pair (double) or less, would be limitless.

If you wanted new, bear in mind, there's 40-50% profit in speakers, you could look at Dali's range.

Here's a bargain!:

1652129938678.png


No afil, just found it looking for Dali prices in the US:
 

sarumbear

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iMickey503

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The number of small, high quality 2 ways you could find on the 2nd hand market for US$300pair (double) or less, would be limitless.

If you wanted new, bear in mind, there's 40-50% profit in speakers, you could look at Dali's range.

Here's a bargain!:

View attachment 205673

No afil, just found it looking for Dali prices in the US:




Oh well. I had 3 min to buy it. Darn!
(Removed wooppise!) Thanks doodski!
 
Last edited:

Doodski

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Newman

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Look at the tweeter response.

View attachment 205680
And the bass??

Look at the crossover:
FA8D70D1-4FA8-4E13-8A36-548C81B482FF.jpeg


2nd order - which gives the ugly (NON-D’Appolito-like) lobing pattern @Glitch showed in post #74.

At least your entering this discussion on its crossover, and trying to make points like the graph above, implies you agree that D’Appolito is a subset of MTM…my original and entire point :)

Your claim in post #62 that MTM cannot exhibit lobing was severely wrong, your claim in post #49 that the C22 must be D’Appolito because it is MTM and “MTM is D’Appolito” was wrong, your claim that the Wikipedia article is wrong or badly written is wrong (even though you are not shy to use that very article when it suited you to claim D’Appolito is not always a 3rd order crossover but can be 4th order too — ironic). To qualify as D’Appolito a speaker needs not only to have an MTM geometry but also a vertical arrangement of that geometry, so that the vertical lobes will have the qualities that D’Appolito was aiming for, yet the C22 has a horizontal placement so is not D’Appolito in more than one way. You have been on a hiding to nothing but you won’t take a backward step and it’s not a good look. Is it because you have more to lose than most, with your MA in acoustics and being a loudspeaker designer, publicly on show in your sig file?

cheers
 

Dennis Murphy

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And the bass??

Look at the crossover:
View attachment 205698

2nd order - which gives the ugly (NON-D’Appolito-like) lobing pattern @Glitch showed in post #74.

At least your entering this discussion on its crossover, and trying to make points like the graph above, implies you agree that D’Appolito is a subset of MTM…my original and entire point :)

Your claim in post #62 that MTM cannot exhibit lobing was severely wrong, your claim in post #49 that the C22 must be D’Appolito because it is MTM and “MTM is D’Appolito” was wrong, your claim that the Wikipedia article is wrong or badly written is wrong (even though you are not shy to use that very article when it suited you to claim D’Appolito is not always a 3rd order crossover but can be 4th order too — ironic). To qualify as D’Appolito a speaker needs not only to have an MTM geometry but also a vertical arrangement of that geometry, so that the vertical lobes will have the qualities that D’Appolito was aiming for, yet the C22 has a horizontal placement so is not D’Appolito in more than one way. You have been on a hiding to nothing but you won’t take a backward step and it’s not a good look. Is it because you have more to lose than most, with your MA in acoustics and being a loudspeaker designer, publicly on show in your sig file?

cheers
And your reliance on the electrical crossover to predict the relevant acoustic crossover is wrong. You have to take into account the response profile of the driver itself to predict the actual acoustic rollp-off of the driver. A second order electrical crossover can easily produce a 3rd or 4th order acoustic slope. Here's the actual acoustic slope of the stock C22 --there isn't enough baffle step compensation, which I corrected in my mod, but the slope is 3rd order. The acoustic slope of the tweeter high pass is 4th order. Mixed orders like this are often necessary to match the arrival times of two driver outputs when the acoustic centers of the two drivers differ, which is usually the case.
1652147724296.png
 

beagleman

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I would go without one until I could get one that has solid directivity. Just get a left and right pair of speakers. My living room TV is hooked up to an AVR with just a left and right tower speaker. It sounds good and nothing is missing as the AVR send everything to those two speakers.


I still do not get the "All or Nothing" approach to home theatre??

Go with NO center?
I think you are somewhat exaggerating a minor to moderate shortcoming in lower priced center speakers.
As I have said numerous times, I have at times used a very entry level center on one of my TV set ups, and at no time, did it sound worse than using a LEFT/RIGHT set up. In fact, it always sounded better.

So for some reason, my one set up sounds okay and yours does not?

Could it be your expectations are coloring your outcome to some extent?
Could you be sitting far too close?

As was shown numerous times, at a proper distance the lobbing issues, are not that relevant.
I hear some tonality changes when moving somewhat off axis for sure, but at no time, is it unusable.

I sense that some are taking a mild to moderate issue, and exaggerating it's importance to call some centers literally unusable.

Flawed to some degree...SURE!, but hyperbole in audio is far more likely.
 

sarumbear

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You have been on a hiding to nothing but you won’t take a backward step and it’s not a good look. Is it because you have more to lose than most, with your MA in acoustics and being a loudspeaker designer, publicly on show in your sig file?
There is nothing further I can say when someone is taking personal insults. Have a good day.
Strange to be cheerful while insulting...
 

Glitch

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The 4th order LR requires in phase connection. Invention is required for a 3rd order crossover only. As I said earlier D’Appolito is a layout type, not a crossover type. It just needs a steep crossover, that’s all.

BTW, why do you think a 4th order crossover is easier to design than a 3rd order?

Can you elaborate on using 4th order LR crossover for D'Appolito? I can't find anything definitive about it online. The xDir simulator only fills in the lobbing nulls when the phase of the tweeter is at 90 degrees. 3rd and 4th order both have a -6dB crossover point but 3rd order with inverted phase is different in being phase linear while 4th order is phase coherent. Why would a 4th order MTM sum up constructively?
 

sarumbear

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Can you elaborate on using 4th order LR crossover for D'Appolito? I can't find anything definitive about it online. The xDir simulator only fills in the lobbing nulls when the phase of the tweeter is at 90 degrees. 3rd and 4th order both have a -6dB crossover point but 3rd order with inverted phase is different in being phase linear while 4th order is phase coherent. Why would a 4th order MTM sum up constructively?
Conventional crossover networks shows that the main lobe of the radiation pattern shifts in direction and increases in amplitude. LR has shown that their filter design eliminates that.
 

Beershaun

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I still do not get the "All or Nothing" approach to home theatre??

Go with NO center?
I think you are somewhat exaggerating a minor to moderate shortcoming in lower priced center speakers.
As I have said numerous times, I have at times used a very entry level center on one of my TV set ups, and at no time, did it sound worse than using a LEFT/RIGHT set up. In fact, it always sounded better.

So for some reason, my one set up sounds okay and yours does not?

Could it be your expectations are coloring your outcome to some extent?
Could you be sitting far too close?

As was shown numerous times, at a proper distance the lobbing issues, are not that relevant.
I hear some tonality changes when moving somewhat off axis for sure, but at no time, is it unusable.

I sense that some are taking a mild to moderate issue, and exaggerating it's importance to call some centers literally unusable.

Flawed to some degree...SURE!, but hyperbole in audio is far more likely.
Did you watch the video I posted by @hardisj if not please do watch it.
 

Newman

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And your reliance on the electrical crossover to predict the relevant acoustic crossover is wrong. You have to take into account the response profile of the driver itself to predict the actual acoustic rollp-off of the driver. A second order electrical crossover can easily produce a 3rd or 4th order acoustic slope. Here's the actual acoustic slope of the stock C22 --there isn't enough baffle step compensation, which I corrected in my mod, but the slope is 3rd order. The acoustic slope of the tweeter high pass is 4th order. Mixed orders like this are often necessary to match the arrival times of two driver outputs when the acoustic centers of the two drivers differ, which is usually the case.
I suspected that might be the case but it still doesn’t make the C22 a D’Appolito, because its horizontal placement means the vertical lobe control that D’Appolito aims to achieve is not happening.

This nit-picking is all about trying to avoid backtracking on an original claim that all “MTM is D’Appolito”, then backing it up with a claim that MTM cannot possibly exhibit lobing because it is symmetrical.
 

hardisj

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So if you sit off-axis, the on-axis response is even less important right? Wouldn't that make PIR even more relevant? And the PIR shows no hint of the directivity issue. Is there a way of simulating the PIR for an off-axis position?

For my Monoprice Encore C6 review, I showed the PIR at different angles.

BTW, at $250/each, the C6 might be one of the better budget center channels I've measured. I was genuinely surprised at how (relatively) good it is off-axis. You don't have the typical nulls off-axis until about 40°.



Estimated%20In-Room%20Response%20%280%20to%20%C2%B130%C2%B0%20Horizontal%29.png




Edit: Here is the PIR at the tweeter axis when EQ is used:

Estimated%20In-Room%20Response%20with%20EQ.png
 

TimW

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For my Monoprice Encore C6 review, I showed the PIR at different angles.

BTW, at $250/each, the C6 might be one of the better budget center channels I've measured. I was genuinely surprised at how (relatively) good it is off-axis. You don't have the typical nulls off-axis until about 40°.



Estimated%20In-Room%20Response%20%280%20to%20%C2%B130%C2%B0%20Horizontal%29.png




Edit: Here is the PIR at the tweeter axis when EQ is used:

Estimated%20In-Room%20Response%20with%20EQ.png
Interesting. It really doesn't look that bad at 30° but -2.5db in the midrange would definitely not be ideal for a center channel. Between Amir's response and these graphics I'm getting a much better idea of what PIR really shows us.
 

sarumbear

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I was genuinely surprised at how (relatively) good it is off-axis. You don't have the typical nulls off-axis until about 40°.
Are we looking at the same chart?

Monoprice%20Encore%20C6%20Horizontal%20Contour%20Plot%20%28Normalized%29.png
 

ROOSKIE

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The number of small, high quality 2 ways you could find on the 2nd hand market for US$300pair (double) or less, would be limitless.

If you wanted new, bear in mind, there's 40-50% profit in speakers, you could look at Dali's range.

Here's a bargain!:

View attachment 205673

No afil, just found it looking for Dali prices in the US:
STOP!! DO NOT BUY!!

themusicroom.shop is a scam/spoof website do not buy anything.

The real shop is TMRaudio.com.

Look at prices - NO way that themusicroom.shop is legit and in the USA almost no one ever uses a non .com site for legit commerce.

*****************************************************************************************
The Pioneer Speaker is $60 at woot.com which is legit for the uninitiated (owned by amazon.com)

I just ordered 2 to test as a LR, I am doing some designs on a budget DIY and couldn't resist some more comparison material. (this, the Polk XT15, the JBl 530, Joseph Crowe 1159) will all be my references for a low budget (under $300 total cost) DIY 2-way) I need to beat the Pioneers, Polks and 530 and get somewhere near the 1159 which I think is a very nice DIy speaker)
*****************************************************************************************

Anyway sorry... again don't get scammed!!!
 
Last edited:

abdo123

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Thanks for posting that. I think the main problem with the MTM with either crossover is the very close driver spacing that's needed to make it work as planned. I don't believe that spacing is achievable in a typical MTM. I just finished an MTM where I raised the tweeter and pushed the woofers in as far as I possibly could, and the off-axis response is still horrid. Just for grins, I'll try a 3rd order and see if it helps at all.

So basically if you’re not using a coax driver you’re probably not within the necessary distance for a decent off-axis response.
 
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