Pioneer’s New Car Speakers Are So Hot They’re Made From Lava

pioneer rock speakers.jpg

I love high-fidelity audio. There’s nothing quite like being able to hear every note in your favourite piece of music. I’m also a big fan of red-hot molten lava. So these new Pioneer speakers will need to make their way into my car sooner rather than later.

Of course, they’re not actually made from molten lava, but from volcanic rock. In particular, the cones are made from basalt, which is ideal for speaker cones because “it’s rigid, heat resistant and delivers more detailed and accurate sound”.


But it’s not just lava basalt that Pioneer have got in these babies. There’s also ceramic compounds to give them optimum strength for destroying your eardrums with doof-doof while you illegally street race your mum’s Festiva optimum sound.

There are a whole range of models that use the new materials, ranging from the $199 10cm 2-way Speaker with 110W Max power handling, all the way to the $399 17cm Packaged Component Speaker System with 260W.

Here’s the full release:

23 April 08
Rock on with Pioneer TS-D Series Speakers made from basalt.
Pioneer Electronics’ next generation TS-D series speakers boast a world first technology; a speaker cone made from basalt, a volcanic rock that improves the speakers’ sound quality.

Pioneer engineers chose basalt because it’s an ideal material for the cone as it’s rigid, heat resistant and delivers more detailed and accurate sound.  Pioneer’s innovative speaker technology takes basalt fibres interwoven with Aramid fibre. The Dual Layer IMX Aramid / Basalt fibre composite cones are designed to deliver accurately detailed sound reproduction.

“Pioneer speaker engineers are constantly looking at different materials that can reproduce the highest sound quality possible. Basalt was chosen for its strength, heat resistance and rigidity. The result is a cleaner bigger sound.” Said Breanna Hanke, Product Manager for the mobile electronics group at Pioneer Electronics Australia.

TS-D1720C 17cm Packaged Component Speaker System 260W Max power handling
 
TS-D1002R 10cm 2-way Speaker with 110W Max power handling   

The new cones consist of a high-tech sandwich of basalt and ceramic components. The basalt, before it is turned into a fabric, is pulverized and melted at more than 2700 degrees Fahrenheit and then drawn into fibres. The combined materials of basalt fibres and aramid fibres are used to reinforce Pioneer’s composite injection moulded polypropylene (IMPP), creating an extremely strong speaker cone that can withstand flexing associated with excessive cone movement and produce an improved transient response in the mid to low frequency spectrum.

The new cones are matched with ultra light weight soft dome tweeters in both the coaxial and component versions. The large soft dome tweeters, made of high quality laminated polyester, use a finite element method (FEM) design with a specially crafted rear chamber that prevents standing waves and creates a loading effect to help produce a wider frequency response. In the coaxial version, the tweeter is placed in a waveguide chamber to control and direct the sound to the listener’s ears.
To further enhance performance and ease of installation, each TS-D speaker comes with a passive crossover network. In the component package, the speakers come with an attractive outboard passive crossover that uses an audiophile-grade film capacitor for the tweeter with a cut-off at 0 or -3dB and a metal core coil for the woofer to produce a smooth, natural response.
The new generation TS-D speakers are available from March 08
TS-D1002R 10cm 2-way Speaker with 110W Max power handling  – RRP $ 199
TS-D1602R 16cm 2-way Speaker with 260W Max power handling –  RRP $ 289
TS-D6902R 6×9″ 2-Way Speaker 360W Max power handling  – RRP $ 329
TS-D1720C 17cm Packaged Component Speaker System 260W
Max power handling (comes with a 16cm spacer ring so it can fit into both 16cm and 17cm holes)
RRP $ 399

For detailed specifications, information on other Pioneer products, technical updates and FAQs, visit
www.pureexperience.com.au
or
www.pioneer.com.au

Consumer Information: 1800 060 853

[Pioneer]


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.