Oriental cousin

Unpredictable, we aren't having rain in April and May in the past, neither we see our currency at all time low against major currencies. Most unfortunately indeed, every import becomes more pricey than ever. I sigh at my falling spending power, my daily meal cost has increased considerably. We have everything to worry about. So, the talk of two jobs is no more a joke in the future, very near future. What more the cost of medicare when age catches up? I wish not to be bled dry financially in my old days, really.

Years of system optimizing, I am delighted that my system has achieved so far. My hearing sharpened in the course of tweaking. I hold true to the principle that "stay status quo whenever in doubt, come back later". While my speakers are not of blue blood, they do many things well, perhaps too well in many respects for their asking price, of course. What can I say, audiophiles, in general, have little respect for a mass market brand, they are entrapped by the brand perception. I do not bother with branding, because value speaks louder to me.

S1-EX strikes a chord due to its well-balanced tonal balance, fairly close to character free. Magnesium midrange driver introduces a very clean midrange. It offers no exception to the rules, the paper driver still reigns supreme in emotional connection. The Beryllium tweeter confined in the midrange driver is relatively reserved, not something I'd expect given 100kHz on the paper. Anyway, Pioneer engineers did a remarkable job marrying all the drivers and maintained in phase. Try as hard as I could, I couldn't discern the crossover point, perhaps my aged hearing didn't do justice to the task. Coherency ranked high in my audio priority, I subscribed to "lesser driver, lesser issue". Having said so, I didn't get caught by surprise that Kalman Rubinson, the Stereophile reviewer felt like listening to flat speakers. From my own experience, I couldn't agree more. Did I sound like self-boasting?

Point source is a brilliant idea, a speaker wisdom from the past. This design kills two birds with one stone, the tweeter nestled in the midrange driver, the membrane of the midrange driver serves as a waveguide to permit single source sound propagating. It handles 400Hz and above, covering the human most sensitive audible frequency range. In comparison to conventional speakers where the tweeter and midrange drivers are separately located, the sound varies to the ear height when seated, more so with a stand-up and sit-down listening.We have got different listening heights.

While so far so good, I'm not without any qualms. My goodness, fresh aramid, carbon fiber and polypropylene composite bass drivers are tight and take forever to break in. Before I come to the bass performance, I'd like to draw your attention to the bass character. Metal bass driver and paper bass driver represent the two extreme bass character, the former is fast, lean, clean, tenacious while the latter is warm, fuller, sluggish and unprecise. S1-EX sits in the middle ground. S1-EX bass deficiency really bothered me before break in, there isn't any meat to the bone, in which led to a recessed mids. This is not a speaker that sings like a canary out of the box or even 1000 hours on them. To remedy this, I did lots of bass enhancement and hours on them to get the bass back up. On the upper end, the highs are reserved even though they claimed of reaching 100kHz. It somehow renders a more civilized, poised and refined demeanor, a very precious asset indeed. The harsh, coarse highs and constantly calling attention to itself top the list of irking you. For me, it is easy to enhance the highs than to tame it. Having said that, to uncolor the speaker is an arduous task that often doesn't pay, a silly idea I must say so. You never know what you will get yourself into. There goes my wishlist, not a perfect specification fit speaker though, but easier to work around to attain my sound goal. Be realistic, the sonic anomalies surface with the room nodes, they will derive the sound from what it should have been. You need to try a few cables on them, the least and room treatment to get what you wanted.

Everything falls into the right place once the bass drivers loosen up, eventually. My tuning has been to facilitate a more conducive listening environment. Not forgetting, adding a healthy dose of spark to give life. S1-EX loves to be driven hard, it was designed for AV at heart. Bass volume shouldn't be the Achille's heel. The bass becomes profoundly gratifying after two Frank Power Banks came to aid, they mark a milestone transformation. I am sinking in the energy sensation, loving it.

Energy/power, resolution and dynamic, S1-EX excels without skimping the emotive department. This is a three years culmination of my work. Says who? Our natural intuition to sound is astoundingly accurate, I often benchmark it against live performance. What measures well doesn't necessary sound good. If otherwise, why undergoing subjective listening if the measurements can fill the bill? Food for thought.

Lastly, buy a speaker to your room size if you don't intend to wage a war against room acoustics. This is a battle you have little chances of winning.