wow... i started tinkering with refurbished pioneers, and started saving for Bose!!! i found out if you call Bose direct and tell them your trying to upgrade they will help you. i got a pair of 151 bose speakers new for 90 bucks all i had to do was send them the speakers i was replacing them with and the best of all they paid for the shipping of my old speakers to them once they had my old speakers they shipped my new bose speakers out 151 from bose 106 w/ shpng. from best buy 168.00 cant go wrong.

I got these from a guy off craigs list in my area he sold me all 5 speakers for $75. i couldnt loose. All the speakers checked out so i used them stock for a while then i noticed that a smaller set of bookshelf speakers acutaly sounded better so i decided to tinker with them a little.

First i found out like the other users that the wiring is all messed up. The terminal on the back is not wired correctly to the + of each speaker. The larger spade lug on the drivers are actualy the + but they were all wired to the - on the terminal so they were all working backwards. I also found that when switching the green lead for the midrange with the tweeter the sound increased as far as its forwardness. The midrange came alive and it started to actualy match the center much better.

I didnt stop there i began to tinker with the bass. Like the other users mine also has a "fake" bottom speaker but its not a "fake" speaker its actualy a passive radiator. These work like a port but look better and cover a different frequency range. Mine didnt seem to be working correctly so i removed it and WOW it sounded way better. Both speakers got much more full and the bass increased alot. It had a honkey sound wich i didnt like so i tinkered around with the radiator a little and got it sounding REALLY good now.

What i did was remove the whole basket on the radiator. I use a small hacksaw and just cut the four sections of the backet off and ripped the orange spider from the back of the cone. This loosens up the radiator so that it moves easier wich gave it the best sound so far. The best part is it costs nothing to do this and the gain is toatly worth the time spent. I also tried rearanging the speakers moving the radiator up but i think it sounds better at the bottom.

By switching the colored wires (mine were red and green) it changes the value of the caps and the chrome midrange got a little louder and the tweeter now has a much more laid back sound. IMO stock the midrange was not even working and the tweeter was harsh and over powering.

If you have a set of these try this little mod, you will love the new sound. Its like a whole new set of speakers now!

Very crispy highs.

What a surprisse! you guys are talking about mid-range speaker having no sound?
I opened both of them and guess what, the lower speakers from both towers were fake> fake? yes believe it or not.
No wonder I even bought a new AV Receiver thinking that,
Becarful who you buy them from. I am sorry for my friend, he really got scammed because he bought them brand new. I feel ok you know I just paid a low price because we are good friends, and he wanted to hook me up with better speaker for my system.

Overall they soud good, but indeed; with a sub sounds much better.

I'd have to say the strength of these towers is the broad range of frequencies that are produced. Pioneer has done a great job of crossing over the ranges with all 4 speakers that make up each side. Very crisp but not raspy in anyway. Vocals are crazy true. The imageing comes through in how the artists must have meant the sound to be heard in ranges of volume through the instruments being introduced through-out the songs duration.

Yes, because there is only a 6.5" woofer, bass is a little shallow at low volume. Have no fear though, as soon as you turn up the volume, the bass does seem to grow at a nice appropriate balance to the incredible mids and highs. Durable rubbers surrounds on the woofers will allow for a little more pounding as well.

Well this review might be a little bias having purchased these used and getting them for half price of new. However it hasn't taken me long after playing some ps2/ watching a couple of movies, and listening to quite a few cd's through my dvd player, to come to the decision that these speakers are NICE!

Great speakers for the price.

As mentioned in the other reviews, not much bass, but with a decent sub-woofer these sound great.

Got a refurbed set off of ebay. They sounded okay, but not that great. Finally got around to running a few tests and found out that there was no sound coming from the midrange (same as review #1). Pioneer had the drivers wired wrong. The midrange and the tweeter were reversed. Re-wired and now they sound 100% better. Sound coming from both mid-range & tweeter). Also have the pioneer 253's as a center channel (refurbed off of ebay also - direct from pioneer) which were reversed also.

Similar Products Used:

Polk, JBL, KLH.

Low Price Clear

Not Much Base

This is a great speaker for DVD/Home theater use. It lacks low end so a sub is a must for realistic effects. Overall a great speaker for the money. The highs and mids are very clear.

Similar Products Used:

Warfedale Emerald 97(these kick ass)