Pioneer HPM-100 Front View With Grills Installed

(supplied courtesy of Pioneer Corporation)

Pioneer HPM-100 Front View With Grills Removed

(actual product photograph)

Pioneer HPM-100 Front View With Grills Installed

(actual product photograph)

Pioneer HPM-100 Side View featuring Genuine Walnut Cabinet

(actual product photograph)

Pioneer HPM-100 featuring Genuine Walnut Cabinet Top

(actual product photograph)

Nostalgia and History

Arguably, to a greater extent than at any other time in history, the music of the 1960s and '70s constituted the voice, the soul, the pulse, and the conscience of a generation. Coursing through this lyrical conduit raged the lifeblood of their emotional, social, political, and spiritual ethos. No mere entertainment, although the recreational value cannot be discounted, the music bridged the chasms of socioeconomic class, albeit briefly, while dramatically expanding the rift between generations. All inclusive in that no genre was excluded or denigrated, Folk, Rock, Soul, Country, Jazz, and Pop as well as their radicalized children were equally warmly received and lovingly embraced.

Seemingly incongruent, the musical stylings of Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Otis Redding, The Beatles, Marvin Gaye, Waylon Jennings, the Rolling Stones, Tammy Wynette, The Beach Boys, the Grateful Dead, Aretha Franklin, The Mamas and the Papas, Merle Haggard, Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), The Supremes, Willie Nelson, The Doors, Simon & Garfunkel, et al. bespoke the hopes, dreams, fears, and feelings of virtually an entire generation. It was not at all uncommon for representatives of these disparate genres to share the identical stage, audience, and adoration. Through their lips flowed that poetry so long silenced by cultural and societal conventions. Pandora's Box had indeed been opened and, regardless of the public outcry, could not now be closed. Whether for the better or the worse, the heretofore silent masses had been given a voice —the timbre of which would evermore cleave the status quo.

Holding tight the coattails of this Baby Boom (1946-1964) generational upheaval was a music industry in transition— ill-equipped and unprepared to translate live performances and recording studio sessions into accurately rendered reproductions worthy of a discriminating, discerning, and increasingly exacting public. To be equitable, somewhat modest advances had been forthcoming in the quality and fidelity of professional audio equipment due primarily to the demands of the movie industry. Unfortunately, the consumer market was, perhaps, either considered too insignificant or unprofitable to warrant any appreciable attention.

Sounding loudly and stereophonically was the death knell for those benighted, drear days of the monophonic monopoly—single channel record players and tape recorders (music-in-a-box)—and the age of those particularly uninspired, apathetic men of commerce who held tight, little altered, the original works of such prominent scientists and inventors as Heinrich Hertz, Oliver Lodge, Alexander Popov, Edward Brauley, Thomas Edison, Guglielmo Marconi, Reginald Fessenden, Harold D. Arnold, Emile Berliner, Peter Goldmark, David Sarnoff, and Edwin Armstrong. The sounds of silence were being shattered by the "The Sound of Silence".

The consumer audio industry consisted of a disjointed admixture of dilettantes and serious contenders whose name was Legion. Familiar household names such as General Electric, RCA (see The Victor Talking Machine Company), Western Electric, Magnavox, Philco, Zenith, Emerson Radio Corporation, Sylvania, Westinghouse, McIntosh Laboratory Inc., H.H. Scott, Inc., The Fisher Radio Corporation, et al. were being either stirred to action or supplanted by an invading army of, perchance, less well-known challengers, including: Pioneer, Akai, Sony, JVC, Sanyo, Marantz, Kenwood, Sansui, et al.

In 1962 the Pioneer Electronic Corporation introduced the world's first component stereo system. Complacency and apathy were quickly replaced by controlled chaos. While some audio equipment manufacturers coveted the entire pie: preamps, amplifiers, receivers, turntables, tape decks, speakers, etc., others determined to specialize and, thereby, focus their expertise on specific components. It was during this second age of audio enlightenment that the mighty men of vision, innovation, dedication, and true genius began to gain the renown, recognition, admiration, and esteem to which they were, indeed, entitled. Many had labored overlong and tirelessly under less than ideal conditions, unknown and under appreciated outside their relatively small community, in order to bring forth genuine high fidelity.

Dawned the day of such preeminent audio & acoustical engineers, inventors, and trailblazers as Bart Locanthi (Computer Engineering Associates, JBL [Corporate Vice President of Engineering at JBL from 1960 to 1970], Altec Corporation, Cetec Gauss, Pioneer [Vice President of Development from 1975 to 1986], BNL Research Associates), William Thomas (James B. Lansing Sound, Incorporated or, as it may be more familiarly known—JBL), Robert Hartsfield (JBL), Richard Ranger (RCA, Rangertone Incorporated), Dr. Amar G. Bose (Bose Corporation), Dr. Sidney Harman & Bernard Kardon (Harman/Kardon), Edmond May (JBL, Cetec Gauss, Marantz Superscope), Billy Woodman (ATC Acoustic Engineers), Jim Thiel (THIEL), Edgar M. Villchur (Acoustic Research), Henry Kloss (Acoustic Research Corporation, KLH, Advent Corporation, Cambridge SoundWorks, Tivoli Audio), Paul W. Klipsch (Klipsch Audio Technologies, Mondial Designs), John C. Koss ( Koss Corp.), Gene Czerwinski (Cerwin-Vega), Ken Kreisel (M&K Sound), Dr. Lester Field (Hughes Aircraft [Vice President and Chief Scientist], M&K Sound), James Bongiorno (Audio Workshop, Rectilinear Research, Dynaco, Marantz, Scientific Audio Electronics [SAE], Great American Sound, Sumo, Spread Spectrum Technologies Inc.), Sidney Stockton Smith (RadioCraftsman, Marantz), Dick Sequerra (Telefunken-GMBH, R. Sequerra Associates, Marantz, Sequerra Audio Labs, L.L.C.), and Ed Miller (Scientific Audio Electronics [SAE], Great American Sound Co. [GAS], Sherwood Electronic Labs).

	Condition: Like New	Our Price: Sold
	Availability: Out of Stock	Shipping: Buyer Pickup	Quantity: One Pair

Specifications: 1