Pioneer HPM-100 (1976)

One of today's best speakers is famous for its highs. Another has been said to deliver the best bass and a third is loved for its mid-range performance. Each "best" speaker is terriffic in its own particular area because it's engineered that way. To please people who are hugh up on a particular kind of sound.

The new HPM-100 speaker system is different. It produces superlative sound across the whole spectrum. That is not an accident.

Originally it was a challenge to our engineers, specialize in perfecting everything. Their response was to create a whole new universe of loudspeaker technology.

For the superhigh frequency range, to begin with, they gave the HPM-100 a radically new kind of supertweeter, made with a newly developed substance called High Polymer Molecular film. This HPM film is used to convert electrical energy into sound. It does so with a degree of accuracy that was previously only a theory.

That's a lot to claim, but these speakers really are that different from everything that has gone before. They work without any magnets , voice coil or domes. In fact without any moving parts at all.

The tweeter, mid-range driver and woofer all depart just as radically from conventional speaker technology. The key innovation in all of them is a process that turns out speaker cones heavily impregnated with carbon fibres. They are rigid and tough, but still thin and lighf. As a result, each of them can move easily, like a well-oiled piston, to produce high and middle and low frequencies that are clearer, more natural and far more transparent than anything you'd expect to hear from a four-way speaker system.

Pioneer unique carbon-fiber blend woofers

Pioneer's success with its unique cone material called carbon-fiber blend is now well known and the realistic sound of Pioneer speakers owe much to its use. Because the material is lighter in weight than comparable cone paper type materials, but ideally rigid it responds more trouthfully to low frequency impulses.

High-Polymer Super Tweeter

There are five outstanding advantages of this unique super-high-frequency driver unit which make it the ideal transducer:

• Its semicylindrical form covers a wide 180 degrees range ending conventional tweeter directionality.
• Its ultra-thin, high-polymer film diaphragm vibrates in a "breathing motion" over its entire surface.
• It is effectively damped by elastic materials to prevent the deterioration of its best characteristics and to end excessive harmonic distortion.
• It has a high power handling capability
• Its sound is crisp, natural and clean

Computer Determined Cabinets and High Efficiency Networks

Having the best loudspeakers serves no real purpose unless the cabinet design is well planned and incorporates crossover networks of the highest quality.

The crossover network, using metallised paper capacitors and ferrite core coils assure gentle crossover slope of 8 dB per octave.

Pioneer has chosen two different techniques of cabinet design; bass reflex and infinite baffle type. Each technique has been perfected and is chosen to fulfill every specificeventuality, the cabinet itself was designed with the assistance of computers in scientifically determined structural assembly.

Speakers to live with

Pioneer has not forgotten that a speaker system is also a piece of furniture. Expensive furniture that you may wish to keep for a long time. The style was purposely chosen to adapt and harmonize with a multitude of decors. Close inspection will reveal the true quality of your Pionner speakers, not for nothing does Pioneer have the reputation of producting the best finished on the market.

Specifications

Enclosure type: bass-reflex, 4-way, 4 speakers

Speakers:

1 Woofer: 300 mm (12") cone

1 Midrange: 100 mm (4") cone

1 Tweeter:, 45 mm (1¾") cone

1 Super-Tweeter: high polymer

Crossover frequency: 3000/4000/12,000 Hz

Frequency range: 30 Hz - 25 kHz

Sensitivity: 92,5 dB/W at 1m distance

Operating power (to get 96 dB SPL at 1m distance): 2,1 W (DIN)

Music power: 100 W (DIN)

Nominal impedance: 8 ohms

Dimensions (W x H x D): 390 x 670 x 393 mm (15⅜" x 26⁶/₁₆" x 15¹⁵/₃₂")

Weight: 26,7 kg (58 lbs 12 oz)