I've read in audio forums where people have referred to the CS-901 as ". . .the worst of the Kabuki era," and then there's this one from Audio Karma in which the author of the post referred to these as "[The CS-901] wasn't engineered - it was spec'd out by the marketing department. It's just a mindless copy of every speaker cliche they could think of."I'll agree that the plastic horn in the center of the 15" woofer looks ridiculous, and that these were probably designed with a steep emphasis on form over function. I listened to this pair though, and they sounded . . .well, weak. The bass wasn't nearly deep enough for that size of a woofer, and so I pushed on the cone to find it was very slow to respond. I watched as the rubber surround material wrinkled during this exercise and realized these speakers have seen better days. One would have to spend the money to re-edge the woofers if they wanted these to sound anything like they did back in the mid-70s.
I'm sure these looked very impressive in a store window though - with or without the wood lattice grills, the Pioneer speakers in this series were certainly eye-catching if nothing else.
Have any stories or photos of your Pioneer CS-901 speakers? Please leave a comment or send me an email.
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