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TAD (Pioneer) speakers at CES 2003 (2 Viewers)

Danny Tse

Senior HTF Member
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Nov 1, 2000
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You want nice sounding high-end Japanese speakers? Here it is, from TAD (Technical Audio Devices)....

Just $40,000/pair. From the Stereophile website. The article neglected to mention that TAD is better known as Pioneer though.
 

Scott Oliver

Screenwriter
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Aug 30, 2000
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TAD is under the ownership of Pioneer, but a completely differnet animal. TAD at its inception was ordered to advance the field of drivers, meaning build the best drivers possible - no budget.

Hence TAD drivers cost several thousand dollars vs most any other driver which cost under a thousand (actually well under for the vast majority).

The owner of Bel Canto uses a pair of their speakers for his personal system.

Up to this pair TAD had always been using horn compression drivers, so I guess this speakers is their attempt to penetrate the high end consumer market more.

6Moons.com has an interview with the owner of Bel Canto on thier website that has pictures and this background mentioned. The speakers he has are quite impressive looking.
 

Brett F

Auditioning
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Oct 9, 2000
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Claude M

Stunt Coordinator
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Jan 18, 2001
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Pioneer made a series of speakers for Phase Linear around 1980 which use similar drivers. The mids are beryllium, the tweeters are ribbon (the RT7, exact same in appearence and specs as the RT9). Here is a link: http://www.phaselinearhistory.com/p_series_speakers.htm
I have a pair of these I bought when the company went out of business. They sound incredible to this day. The P580 was a hell of a speaker for its day.
 

Miklsan K

Agent
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Jan 9, 2002
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Interesting. I am just curious why it is that Asian (Japanese) companies are preceived as making inferior speakers? I am sure most Asian manufacturers would be capable of building phenomenal speakers if they put their minds and resources to it. On the other hand, quite a few of the beloved "internet-direct only" audio brands are made in Asia, and they don't seem to suffer from this stigma.
 

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