Pioneer CS-655 (1977–1980)
The Pioneer CS-655 is a big three-way bookshelf speaker from the late 1970s. Pioneer put its engineering weight behind every driver. It was priced at ¥49,800 per unit around 1977.
The driver lineup is the interesting part. The low end is a 25 cm cone woofer with an aluminum die-cast frame and a 120 mm ferrite magnet. The voice coil bobbin has a mass balancer and a pure copper cap on the pole piece, all aimed at reducing distortion. The midrange is a 65 mm dome, an unusual and ambitious choice for the era. Its diaphragm is cone paper mixed with carbon fiber and coated with a special damping agent, and it shares the same large magnet and die-cast frame as the woofer. Pioneer deliberately used a direct-radiator design without an equalizer to avoid coloration. Instead it relied on a flange-covered tangential edge and a rear back chamber filled with sound-absorbing material. The tweeter is a 25 mm titanium dome, just 0.025 mm thick, with a copper-clad aluminum voice coil to keep moving mass low. Both the midrange and tweeter use tangential edges for center retention at high excursion.
The enclosure is sealed ("airtight") and made from softwood particle board, with internal reinforcement and sound-absorbing material placed to suppress standing waves. The crossover points are 850 Hz and 4.5 kHz. The network uses a high-permeability ferrite core choke, an air-core coil and low-loss MF capacitors. Rated impedance is 6.3 Ω, with a playback frequency band of 35 Hz to 30,000 Hz, an output sound pressure level of 92 dB/W/m, and a maximum input of 60W. Each speaker measures 350 × 610 × 315 mm and weighs 19.5 kg, which is hefty.
Surviving documentation on the CS-655 is thin outside of its Japanese spec sheet. The record shows it was produced from 1977 to 1980. Russian-language sources confirm the model reached owners in that region. One forum member noted acquiring a pair in 2018 whose tweeters were not original, a common fate for speakers of this age. A Dzen video owner said he was happy to receive a pair as a gift, promising "truly high-quality sound from Japan." One diyaudio.ru comparison noted the CS-655's sound differed from a nearby pair of Pioneer CS-T66 speakers but was "equally good" given the similar design philosophy. No period reviews in English-language publications have surfaced, and no current market pricing data is documented.
- 3-way, 3-speaker, sealed bookshelf design
- 25 cm cone woofer / 65 mm carbon-fiber dome midrange / 25 mm titanium dome tweeter
- Impedance: 6.3 Ω · Max input: 60W
- Frequency band: 35 Hz – 30,000 Hz · 92 dB/W/m
- Crossovers: 850 Hz / 4,500 Hz
- 350 × 610 × 315 mm · 19.5 kg each
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