Pioneer's history of innovation in sound and speakers

Pioneer's history of innovation in sound and speakers

Posted on 01 Jan, 2016, by Pioneer India

Pioneer electronics started in japan by Mr.Nozomu Matsumoto in 1937. He was a very passionate individual who loved music and loved technology. He took it upon himself to create a loudspeaker built in japan that would reproduce the same quality and performance of the products that he was buying from overseas. Nozomu Matsumoto’s first business was a radio repair shop where he was fixed and repaired products made by others. In the same shop, he began creating Pioneer Speakers.

Mr.Nozomu Matsumoto built these speakers because he wanted to share with people the same strong passion and excitement he experienced while listening to imported speakers. "Pioneers’ original mission was to share the listening experience with more people." – Mr.Naoto Takashima (Director, Tohoku Pioneer)


Over the history of Pioneer, we have been focusing on Mr.Nozomu Matsumotos’ original spirit of his company which was the reproduction of music. We have always embraced it. We are inspired to produce a natural sound quality in not only speakers but in all our equipment, to deliver the best at the most valuable price point.


TAD-Reference One

Pioneers strength is the ability to deliver our founder’s philosophy to practically any listener at all price points. By applying technology and experience developed for TAD and other high-end pioneer speakers, even our least expensive speakers achieve our mission. – Mr.Naoto Takashima (Director, Tohoku Pioneer).


Research & Engineering

Our innovation is continued throughout almost every decade. We are respected for our role in introducing innovations such as consumer laser disc (1979), DVD-Video player (1996), a high definition plasma display (1997) and organic electroluminescent (OEL) display (1997).  Once we moved into car electronics, we became the first manufacturer to develop a car cd player in 1984. In 1990, we introduced GPS car navigation and expanded car entertainment beyond music and sound reproduction. We were also the creator of detachable face technology. It was a security feature where you could physically remove all of the controls from a car radio and simply put it in your pocket. To this day, Pioneer still develops and manufactures innovative and high-tech entertainment and electronic products.
Pioneers Tohoku factory was founded in 1966 with the purpose of creating a location where we could concentrate on material research efforts, engineering, testing and the production of speakers. This factory has continued to develop many of Pioneers advanced technologies in both audio reproduction and other areas right up until today. It really has been the heart of Pioneers engineering for Pioneers speakers. We manufacture speakers and develop speakers and research speakers for practically every product that we produce, whether that’s a portable product or an automotive product or home electronics product. It’s all engineered out of our Tohoku’s facility.

"As listeners, our sense of hearing 'sound' is more than just information. It can create excitement and stir passion in our souls." - Naoto Takashima (Director, Tohoku Pioneer)

Most of the speaker available in the market today are built on a very old technology with a very simple process. What is unique to pioneer and really the embodiment of the total factory is that we never stop thinking about different ways to either apply material or mechanics or electrical engineering to the reproduction of sound through speakers or innovating completely new technology. So, even though the basis of it may be a technology that was developed fifty years ago, Pioneers is consistently and constantly innovating and really thinking about new ways to produce sound.

“what will lie in our future path depends on the combined efforts of each and every one of you. Let us all take care of ourselves so that we can realize our hopes.” - Nozomu Matsumoto (1987)


Welcome to Pioneer

Pioneer continues to evolve loudspeaker technology, utilizing specialized equipment and testing facilities to develop the most reliable and accurate speakers. Pioneer has invested in many different tools over the history such as our anechoic chamber which is a room specifically designed to remove all reflections. So that when we are testing and measuring a loudspeaker in this environment we hear only the sound that is reproduced by the speaker. It’s a very accurate way to very closely monitor changes that we make while engineering a loudspeaker. We have specialized labs for reliability testing and material testing. Reliability testing is done for things such as temperature, moisture, vibrations and drop test. Many of those different techniques that we use are done to check how a loudspeaker will perform in the real world. We have grouped all of these test equipment’s and even specialized room together in one facility.


HVT & Speaker Technology

Throughout Pioneer’s history, we have continued to evolve loudspeaker technology that is applied, whether it is for home use or professional use or party use. As all of those environments continue to change, we change the packaging, material and the way we develop loudspeakers for those environments. In this way, Pioneer has continued to invest in human resources, engineers, equipment’s, facilities, buildings mostly centered on Tohoku facility. An example of this technology is HVT (Horizontal Vertical Transforming). Hiroyuki Kobayashi (General Manager, aftermarket car speaker engineer Dept.) says HVT is unique because its mechanical structure cancels destructive vibrations in the speaker.

The result of this innovative technology is a subwoofer system with significantly reduce physical depth while maintaining superior bass reproduction. In this one facility we have got these people dedicated to speaker production all in the same facility start to finish and it really simplifies and makes our entire organization more efficient and we can pass that on to the consumer both that in sound quality and reliability and ultimately in the economies of scale of building product that is affordable to consumers