Pioneer SP-PK52FS Andrew Jones 5.1 Home Theater Speaker Package

Did a lot of research for an AV receiver and speakers to match my new Vizio P series smart TV. I was going to go with the Klipsch Reference Black 5.1 set up and then I stumbled across these. I had already set my sights on this Pioneer receiver so why not go all the way Pioneer. I had a Pioneer cassette deck with TriAxial 6x9” speakers in the rear and 5” coaxials in the doors of my Opel in 1973. And a quadraphonic system. They rocked. These will blow the windows out. Watching The Fifth Element at about 60% scares the bejeesus out of you. My classic rock collection sounds amazing too. ZZ Top sounds like they’re standing in your living room jamming. Close your eyes and be transported to another dimension. They are heavy, solid, well made. Some reviews knock the aesthetics but personally I like low key non flashy look. I used the 16 gauge wire from KableDirekt and the Small VideoSecu speaker stands for the rear speakers. Very happy.

This is a great system , don't hesitate , I will put it against any other buget speaker system and Pionner will be the best

I have owned this speaker set for around a year, I will be as fair as I can to these speakers in my review as well as comparing them to a few other speaker sets I was able to listen to in the same two different rooms. I also used the same receiver, distances, and obviously room size. I am driving these with a Sony STR-DN1040.Characteristics: The sound is laid back, not forward. They can sound very airy and open, a trick usually pulled off by more expensive speaker sets (bravo Andrew Jones!). But they need to be kept in their sweet spot, which is not too low or not too loud. At low volumes, they are muddy and lose their audio signature and all bass. At higher volumes, they can distort. They sound good for all types of music, but I always found the high end lacking a lot of detail, and low end lacking that added bass. You NEED a sub woofer, even in a small room. They are pretty big, so you need some space to install these. They are not the most attractive speakers I have seen, so WAF may be okay or low.They sound fairly rich, I have a Sony STR-DN1040 Receiver and crossed over at 80 Hz, auto-calibrated and then set with a Radio Shack SPL Meter to set volumes. They are fairly balanced together and fill the room with sound. They have a good crossover from what I have read. which could account for the sound quality. I always felt there is something "missing" with the tweeters and the woofers are too small to really sound good on the low end. They lack the "finesse" of higher end speakers.They are kind of weird, I think budget limitations are the biggest issue. Some music sounds REALLY good, while other songs sound like "muffled" and "compressed" (sound is hard to describe). The overall sound is airy and not forward, kind of neutral. I heard these in our much larger front room with a Pioneer Elite receiver and they did sound much better, which just looking at them you would think opposite.The Set:Value: ******Looks: **Sound quality: ***Build: ****Efficiency: **The Components:The Towers: Very balanced sounding, go down pretty low with usable bass to about 65-70 Hz. They are definitely the best speaker of the set of these, as they should be. Short for towers as well, decently heavy and have a half solid, half cheap feel if being critical. They look okay but I never liked the shape of them, as they are short in the back and thicker in front. NEVER take the grills off, they are UGLY without the grills and the woofers are too small to look good. The woofers are also too small to give decent low end, they dig fairly deep but require a sub woofer for real bass.The Center: A speaker I have a problem with but not the worst component of these. It does not sound bad, per se...it just is not dynamic and the small woofers prevents it from digging deep at all (so they lack mid-bass when you are using a sub woofer). They do sound decent with music, as with all of the speakers here...keep the grills on unless you like small, ugly speakers! Note: The manual says to cross the center over at 100 Hz. I always set mine to 80 Hz but the puny woofers are not going to dig deep at all.The Surround speakers: 2nd best sounding of the set, they actually sound pretty good but are yet again held back by the small woofers. More of the same, same strengths and weaknesses of the towers.The Sub woofer: Weak amp, barely goes deeper than the Towers as far as specs go, sounds okay and looks match the rest of the set. Bright blue "On" light on the front. This is THE worst speaker of the set and there is a much better sub which is only very slightly more expensive. For a budget less than $300 for the sub woofer, get the BIC America F12 sub woofer over this. The BIC is much louder, goes much much lower, and is a way better speaker for barely more money. Over $300 get a SVS or HSU Sub woofer. Skip this one, even in my 10' x 11' room it was weak. Not horrible, mind you. But the BIC, Energy 8" Sun I own, and even my old Sony 10" sub woofer pump out more bass.Compared to other speaker sets in my 10' x 11' room and our open front room:Compared to Energy Take Classic 5.0: Not as rich as the Energy set but definitely will fill a larger room better. I think the Takes sound very good and are great for small speakers that "disappear in a room". I would say both are good, for more richness Energy, for more room-filling sound Pioneer. More expensive Energy speakers blow the Pioneers away, I might add. But you will likely pay more too.Compared to Jamo H426 5.0 set: The towers give the Pioneers a run for the money, the Pioneers warmer and richer, the Jamo Towers have a better sounding tweeter and better at stereo imaging. The rest of the speaker system cannot compete with the Pioneer set, the wimpy center and surrounds lack the room filling sound and they do not have the bass or airy sound. The Pioneers overall whip the Jamo set in almost every way and are the superior speakers. Though not you can get the Jamos dirt cheap....but spend a little more and get the Pioneers if you are between the two. I would think if you replaced the Jamo Center and Bookshelves with higher end Jamos, goodbye Pioneer set! The cost may actually be the same and would really be a better investment if sound quality is concerned. The set is not the most attractive, but neither are the Pioneers!Compared to Polk Audio CS-10, 2 x TSi-400, and TSi-100 bookshelf 5.0 set: Though more expensive, the Polk Audio speakers kill the Pioneers. The tweeter, bass, and mid range sound are all much better and the stereo imaging is a big step up from the Pioneers. These were also better in my smaller room but also sound better in a bigger room. Richer sound, more balanced, deeper bass, and better for movies and all music. Easier to drive with the receiver and sound good low, average, and high volume.My current speakers...you will never guess which speakers I will stay with until later this year when I upgrade my speakers. One word...SONY.What? SONY speakers over Pioneer? HOW?I have two Sony SS-5000 Towers, the matching surrounds, and center speaker. Bigger and taller towers, MUCH older (about 12 years or so), and small surround speakers. They are 8 Ohms and a little more efficient than the Pioneers. They blow the Pioneers away, badly....shocked? I am too!The Sony set has a better tweeter, not as good of a crossover, and a much better and larger woofer. They are more balanced, better bass, and sound good with music and movies alike. Better stereo imaging, and sound richer yet have an airy sound just like the Pioneers! The vocals are a lot clearer and movie dialog and sound effects are awesome. In fact, I think the sound quality of these in my particular room is best, I have also heard there in our front room and they sound good in a larger room too. They are also easy to modify to sound even better, which would just be filling them up with more material and maybe tweaking the crossover network. But even as they are, the sound is just awesome.The Bottom Line: For the price range, the Pioneers are excellent speakers. I think maybe for a smaller room like mine, 4 of the surround speakers and the center would be superior than the towers for stereo imaging. Anything larger and would say get the two towers, two surround (four for 7.1), and the center. The towers are too short, so the tweeter is always below your ears and this I believe hurts the stereo imaging ability. They are among the best cheap speakers I have heard, and if you listen to songs that are within their limits, you will be rewarded with pretty good sound. If Andrew Jones had went with a larger woofer, these would sound a heck of a lot better and dig deeper. The bass is wimpy for such a larger speaker set, take off the grills if you want to see comical woofer sizes. They are not very attractive speakers, and you can get better sound from other sets. But I think a lot of people would like the sound of these. Sound is very subjective, as my fiance agrees with me on all I said and she likes the Sony set better as well. But, some may like the Pioneers better. You cannot go far wrong, but do not think these will compete with more expensive speaker sets either. Keep the volume up but not too high and they sound their best, but crank them or bring them to a whisper and the sound is not that good.What can be Improved: Taller towers, bigger woofers. Keep the gold binding posts, make them a little more efficient. Make the center woofers as big as the rest of the set, even if that drives the costs up a bit. With these improvements, I believe this set could compete with some more expensive sets and quite easily. Maybe Andrew Jones could do this with a 3rd edition of these speakers? I think if they can keep the costs down but make a little better quality speakers, they would make all of the higher end brands take notice.

Awesome deal

I purchased this speaker package to double for Home Theatre and pure music enjoyment. Searching the internet led me to these Andrew Jones designed speakers, their reviews on Amazon, and dedicated AV websites. For example:Audioholics.comhometheatrehifi.comdigitaltrends.comThe AV website review consensus was this grouping offered super price to performance value. After a few months listening to a lot of music via CDs, Pandora One, and internet radio, I arrived at the same conclusion. The speakers are also excellent for surround sound during movies, and because of a substantial center channel one does not struggle to hear dialogue. My Denon X2000 AVR (95w/ch) allows one to adjust the center channel dialogue level which helps. My setup is within a 204 sq.foot room which is roughly 2/3 the size of the ideal space for this grouping when listening to music and just fine for Home Theatre.The speakers sounded dead out of the box but significantly better after several hours of play. The Denon X2000 has Audyssey MultEQ XT calibration. After running Audyssey I began to fully appreciate the sound field created by these speakers.Just really smooth and beautiful sound.I have played all genres of music including complete classical performances that last over 20 minutes without disappointment.It did take a while to figure out the proper adjusments to Audyssey after the initial calibration (among other tweaks) to achieve the full potential of these speakers. The modest sized Towers are somewhat vertically challenged being only 35.5" tall. I made 7" spiked risers for my mine. The center speaker will require a dedicated space. I built a two sided riser/pedestal for my TV placing the center speaker within the pedestal, just beneath the TV. Problem solved, and TV at a better viewing height.This is an entry level 5.1 speaker package with good enough fidelity to groove on music and a no brainer for Home Theater enthusiasts.These are not highly efficient speakers and lose detail at very low volume. Also, they are not designed for extreme high volume. However, they play loud enough for me without distortion.When someone asked Andrew Jones how Pioneer could offer such a nice package so inexpensively; Jones replied by saying Pioneer challenged him to create a quality speaker system the average person could afford. An affordable quality speaker system draws more people into the world of music appreciation and these people will upgrade over time.Listening to music in 2.1 stereo mode where the front L/R towers and subwoofer are the only active speakers is how one can fully appreciate the dynamic audio quality of the towers. I am impressed with how nicely the towers process all the information as opposed to the input being split into surround sound.Fabulous vocal/instrumental clarity while maintaining warmth and a sonic field seemingly suspended middle front. Even in 2.1 stereo there is a degree of three-dimensional imaging.I do think the lovely sound the speakers deliver is a combination of Audyssey and the speakers themselves.