Pioneer is one of the true patriarchs of the hi-fi industry. Its humble beginnings go back to 1938 during WWII in Tokyo, when Pioneer was a radio repair service. The original owners survived the firestorms unleashed upon Tokyo during that war to form Pioneer Electronic Corp., a successful company that went public in 1961. Shortly after this, in 1962, Pioneer introduced its first home audio component stereo system. In 1966, the company moved part of its operation to America and formed Pioneer Electronics USA and began importing Pioneer home stereo products. A few years later, in 1972, the company realized the importance of quality car audio and formed a new car audio division, Pioneer of America. This certainly gives Pioneer bragging rights as one of the leaders in the early development of hi-fi car audio, an honor that is shared with other companies like International Jensen and Kenwood. (Check out their Web site at www.pioneerelectronics.com.)
The subject for this month's review is Pioneer's latest entry to the world of high-performance subwoofers, the Premier TS-W2000SPL 12-in subwoofer. Made in Pioneer's Mexico plant (an interesting diversity in a market where the majority of car subs are nowadays produced in China), the TS-W2000SPL is a new frame up design. The frame is a very smartly configured cast aluminum type that has four large spokes supporting the mounting surfaces and is finished in a flat black "crackle" paint. Unlike the majority of subwoofer frames, the TS-W2000SPL frame actually contains the magnet system rather than having it attached to the rear. This means that in assembly, the motor drops in from the front of the frame and is then bolted to the back of the frame by four large bolts. Although this is not a new idea, it works well and gives any woofer a very stable platform for the motor, a huge heatsink to wick heat away from the motor system and a really great cosmetic appearance. Finishing off this well-designed frame is an injection-molded rubber gasket that fits over the outside edge of the frame and provides both a rear mounting gasket and front trim gasket.
Like most high-powered subs, the TS-W2000SPL frame allows for substantial rear cone travel and has 45mm (1.8 in) of distance from the spider mounting shelf to the front plate. This area is also completely vented and covered by a perforated screen that allows air to flow over the front-traveling, exposed voice coil and the front plate surface for enhanced cooling.
The motor assembly consists of a single piece T-yoke with a 1.25-in diameter pole vent. To increase magnetic fringe field linearity and forward travel stability, Pioneer engineers extended the pole piece 10mm above the top plate. Top plate construction is a bit unusual in that it has what looks like a "bump out" that you normally see on rear plates. This means that the majority of the plate is probably about 8-10mm thick but the bump area that forms the gap is 20mm thick, which is what Pioneer calls an Expanded Gap. This is similar to a method used in the Fujitsu Ten Eclipse subwoofers and allows for a deeper magnetic field to drive the voice coil, but less metal for the magnet system to "drive," and in that respect is more efficient. Incidentally, Pioneer uses its own proprietary software in developing the electrical and mechanical systems for woofer products such as this.
The business end of this high-powered sub, namely the cone assembly, consists of a proprietary cone compound that is comprised of interlaced carbon fiber reinforcing an injection-molded polypropylene cone. The gloss black cone is about 7.5 inches in diameter, which is small for a 12-in woofer but about average for this type of wide surround, long excursion format. Like with many aluminum cone woofers, Pioneer has turned down the outside edge of this injection molded cone to add rigidity. That, plus the 5.5-in diameter, carbon-fiber composite paper dustcap, makes this cone about as stiff as anything I have seen in a high-powered sub.
Suspending this unique cone and dustcap combination is a 1.5x0.75-in proprietary three-layer fiber woven radial surround. This is made up of two layers of foam with a layer of fiber mesh sandwiched between the heat-formed foam layers. The remaining compliance is provided by the 8-in diameter, flat linear cloth spider made of Conex.
Driving this rather sophisticated cone assembly is a 3-in diameter, four-layer dual voice coil with round copper wire wound on a glass-imide voice coil former. Thick braided tinsel wire connects the voice coil to a pair of color-coded chrome binding posts. The tinsel wire is not woven into the spider as is currently popular with a number of manufacturers. Instead, Pioneer has taken a proven and more conventional approach and has glued foam squares to the back surface of the cone to prevent the wires from making noise when they bounce into the back of the cone on long excursions.