Vintage Pioneer appreciation thread - Page 10

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The design of the 10R was taken from the mark II version of the Monitor 10. Thanks, I have always wondered how the mark II would look...
 

 

Is there anything better then vintage pioneer?

I have some Se-l40s but they are in bad condition (one driver is dead :(  ) and replaced the drivers with some others and changed the plug (and made them a y-cable.

 

My brother snagged himself a good find the other day, a pioneer zippo lighter. I'm very jealous haha

so has anyone come up with alternatives or diy solutions for the monitor 10 pads? i've got the itch to buy and recable another pair and am pretty sure the pads will need to be replaced on whatever pair i find.

there is a lambskin leather mod out there. should be able to find it at the search bar here. other option is the SE-XXX line-up used about the same shape/size pads and used the same cushion inserts. you can get something like a good condition se-305 very cheap and use it as spare parts if you like. i really liked the pioneer monitor 10 when i had them. i found nothing wrong with their top-end and bass extension. the monitor 10's like more power then their sensitivity says though but makes sense since the pioneers from what i understood used aluminum voice coils for more power input handling on live-field situations.

ya, i never should have sold my last pair. great physical condition and i did an awesome re-cable on them. ah well.

I've not been into vintage Pioneer before, but I just now got a pair that isn't talked about much, the SE-90D:

 

Not a very ritzy picture, but it's past midnight and I don't have a lot of desk space to shoot either, so.

 

Some specs and better pics here, and also of what appears to be the SE-90D II here – I'm not sure what the difference is driver-wise between those two versions. My pair is missing the cool golden rings on the backside.:( There's some extra info on the related models and the driver design here if you scroll down the page.

 

What got my attention was the listed frequency range: 4-50000 Hz. I don't think I've seen a range that silly for any other pair of mid 80s dynamic phones...

 

The sound wasn't terribly impressive with the original pads, though they're dead flat and I'm not sure if that's how they were originally. With a pair of pads off an HOK 80 and some blu-tack stuffed inside the cups for extra mass (these are almost closed phones), the sound is a lot better, and actually pretty decent for such a light-weight pair of old phones. The treble's a bit... strange, though.

 

I can't properly measure on-ear phones, but from the graph I did measure (with the HOK 80 pads), the SE-90D seem reasonably neutral, only with a dip at 2.6 kHz or so that makes the sound a slight bit recessed. They definitely don't go down to 4 Hz, though, not with these pads anyway.

Edited by vid - 3/23/12 at 6:17pm

They look awesome vid!

Haha I wonder where Beats got their design from?

I think we can thank the 80s for that range haha
 

 

 

Titanium coated diaphragms, once the premium offering by some headphone manufacturers, now only promoted by Koss and Ultrasone.

Edited by MDR30 - 3/24/12 at 1:51pm

I picked up my pioneers a couple weeks ago. In superb condition plus the manual. I can say the sound is better than i expected. After reading reviews on them, i was expecting them to sound like crap, but they actually sounded good enough. I only picked them up for $75 bucks. 

double.

Edited by deviusdragger - 3/25/12 at 12:16am

Made a quick comparison between the SE-90D and the KOSS KSC75. The KSC75 sound a bit more refined while the SE-90D are a bit quicker and somewhat more forward. I prefer the 90D, but there's not a big difference – with some bass boost, the 90D are pretty entertaining for faster-paced electronica, like hard nrg. The 90D seem easier to drive than the KSC75.

 

The 80s were an awesome time for dynamic headphones. You had these reasonably good Pioneer drivers, AKG had its stuff together with the K 241/250/DF (not to mention their experiments with dynamic/electret hybrids), Yamaha & co. were still churning out orthos, Beyerdynamic had the DT 990...

Edited by vid - 3/31/12 at 6:08am

Count me in. I absolutely love my Monitor 10s and my SE-50s.

Edited by BrownBear - 5/1/12 at 1:14pm